English

Our English lessons develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary. We teach our pupils to speak clearly, to convey their ideas fluently and confidently and to ask questions. Their vocabulary is developed systematically.

Reading at Church Lane

Reading is at the core of our curriculum at Church Lane Primary School and Nursery. Our pupils are encouraged to read for pleasure and to read widely. As a starting point and introduction to reading, we use Read Write Inc (RWI) for our phonics programme. Children are taught at a stage appropriate level and this allows them to understand how the sound of each letter (phoneme) links to the way in which that letter is written (grapheme). In EYFS (Reception) and Key Stage One, all pupils take part in a daily phonics session, building on and extending their knowledge. They are taught to blend words together and read/ spell tricky words, which are the ones we cannot sound out.

In phonics, children are supported in their reading by the use of phonetically decodable reading books created by Read Write Inc called book bag books. Each week children are sent home with a RWI book bag book and the story (ditty) the children are focusing on during their phonics lessons in order to build fluency.

All children at Church Lane Primary School and Nursery are asked to continue their reading at home and it is expected that they will read at least 3-5 times a week as part of their homework. Both children and parents are invited to record reading using Boom Reader where there are examples of questions to prompt as children read and the opportunity for children to write about what they are reading or answer questions based on their book.

Guided reading sessions will cover both fiction and non-fiction books. As a school, we use the Bug Club programme to support guided reading: this ensures children are exposed to high level reading texts and receive effective questioning and accompanying resources.

At Church Lane, we focus on using whole class guided reading, which has many benefits including: higher engagement, wider discussions, increased exposure to challenging texts and increased time for deep exploration of a text. This is supported by research from the Educational Endowment Fund and the Open University.

This begins in Key Stage One, although there may be some supplemental carousel activities where required in the earlier stages of this key stage as our initial focus is on developing decoding skills. Once this has been achieved, children will be supported in progressing their comprehension skills and deeper understanding of a text. These guided reading lessons are adapted, supported and scaffolded to allow all children to access the same text.

Although reading is taught discretely in guided reading and English lessons, it is also a key part of foundation subjects too. Reading is used as a hook in non-core lessons to engage, enthuse and encourage children in their understanding of other areas. As in English and guided reading lessons, these texts vary between fiction, non-fiction and poetry to inspire curiosity for all.

 Writing:

At Church Lane we believe that a quality English Writing curriculum should work alongside its reading one. We aim to inspire an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning.

We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledgebase in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We believe that a secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society.

These aims are embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum. We have a rigorous and well-organised English writing curriculum that provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, transcription, composition and discussion. Teachers use a range of books, novels and multi-model texts as stimuli that are age-appropriate to their year groups to embed content, language and writer’s craft to a range of text types, while ensuring that the curriculum’s spelling, grammar and punctuation are taught, and modelled, through the journey of writing that is appropriate to the text type being taught.

We use an approach that uses consistent lesson structures that support vocabulary development; increase knowledge for non-fiction writing; modelling successful vocabulary, grammatical structures and literary devices that can be embedded within the independent stage. Children are afforded opportunities to edit their work to enhance their writing through improved grammatical and vocabulary choices, while proof-reading work, during the planning stage, to ensure spelling and punctuation are both corrected.

Spelling:

Our children at Church Lane have a daily spelling session. In Key Stage One, this begin by exploring common exception words before progressing on to the spelling shed.In Key Stage Two, our pupils follow the Spelling Shed Scheme. This is a robust and systematic programme which reflects the requirements of the new National Curriculum. Every child is given a spelling list that is sent home in preparation for a spelling test later in the week. At the end of every 12-week term, there is a review of children’s understanding and retention of spelling rules and skills. At this point, children are assessed and are placed in the spelling group which is appropriate for them. Throughout the spelling programme, children are taught strategies to enable them to:

• Spell accurately and identify reasons for misspelt words
• Proof-read their spelling
• Recognise and use word origins, families, roots, knowledge of prefixes and suffixes and spelling rules to build upon these skills.
• Use dictionaries, thesauruses and spellchecks.

The importance of English is emphasised throughout school in all areas of the curriculum. To promote this further, a range of extra activities are used to highlight English within the school including World Book Day, Roald Dahl Day and author visits. In addition to this, a range of incentives are used across the key stages to engage and enthuse children in reading and writing.