English
At Whyteleafe School, we aim to inspire a passion for all aspects of English: reading, writing, listening and speaking. We want all children to develop a love of reading in any setting, whether it is choosing to read and explore books or being aware of the opportunities to read in their surrounding environment. Our two libraries encourage children to develop their imagination and their knowledge of the world through reading at school and home; children choose their own books to take home and share with others. At Whyteleafe, we know how essential the parents’ and carers’ support is, therefore parents and carers are encouraged to share their child’s development in reading through the exploration of books, listening to their child read and using differing question types to improve comprehension.
In EYFS and Key Stage 1, phonics is taught daily to enhance skills in reading. This is regularly assessed by teachers in order to meet the emerging needs of children throughout the year. Across the school, skills in reading are taught explicitly in order to ensure that children have a good understanding of what they have read as well as being confident, fluent readers. Every year group teaches whole class reading throughout the week, building fluency, retrieval, explanation and inference skills. A wide variety of reading genres are covered to enable children to appreciate fiction and non-fiction works, poetry, adventure stories, newspaper reports and classics.
We use the structure of the curriculum to encourage creative and imaginative writing through a range of stimuli. At the heart of our English curriculum, we use a strategy which is based upon the notion that talking through creative ideas before writing them is key to understanding a child’s own writing processes. Children are given opportunities to express their work visually through role play and putting actions to their writing plans. They are motivated to present their work through a variety of mediums. As effective presentation is a valuable skill, children develop a clear style of handwriting when presenting through written forms. Children are encouraged to develop their own unique style of handwriting whilst working to the parameters of cursive handwriting in order to ensure that writing styles are fluent and legible.
Within each year group, a range of text types is studied in order to ensure children are exposed to varying grammatical and linguistic choices used by different authors for different purposes. These text types are carefully chosen to suit the emerging needs and interests of the children within the year group. Skills to develop spelling, punctuation and grammar are built into the curriculum, with children gaining an awareness of the different styles of writing for a variety of audiences.
These strategies also support the development of oracy skills. In addition, children enjoy and are exposed to many other opportunities to further those skills: debating throughout the curriculum; modelling of well-constructed texts; speaking opportunities, no pens day; modelling of and extending vocabulary in context; acting in class assemblies.
We work hard to ensure that all children make good progress. Reading and writing are assessed continually throughout the year, both formally and informally, and children are given opportunities to reflect on their learning. Talented pupils are identified through their ability to apply their learning in different contexts, across the curriculum, and by drawing on previously learnt concepts. As a result, they are encouraged to think and apply their learning more deeply, make insightful predictions based on what has been written or read, ask questions in order to extend understanding and discuss ideas from different perspectives.
By the end of year 6, pupils’ reading and writing should be sufficiently fluent and effortless for them to manage the general demands of the curriculum in year 7, across all subjects and not just in English. They should be able to reflect their understanding of the audience and purpose of their writing by selecting appropriate vocabulary and grammar. Pupils’ confidence, enjoyment and mastery of language will be extended through public speaking, performance and debate.
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Aiming to be Inclusive English writing |
Aiming to be Inclusive English Reading |
Aiming to be Inclusive English Early rea... |