English

We educate our children in Primary School to become confident and competent in expressing themselves in the medium of English. This supports their personal, social and emotional growth and helps them to thrive across and beyond the curriculum. We aim to develop fluent readers and writers, focused and empathetic listeners and thoughtful and articulate speakers. We immerse our children in high quality literature and provide opportunities for them to think and communicate in increasingly complex and sophisticated ways as they progress through the school.

With our youngest children in Foundation Stage 1 and 2, we support them on the beginning of their language journey by fostering a love of reading, through exposure to a variety of different narratives, rhymes and stories. We provide opportunities for them to express themselves through play and daily interactions with others. The children have opportunities to mark make and develop their fine motor skills through games and activities with a variety of materials. They start learning to identify letter sounds and shapes and blend and segment them as they embark on early reading and writing.

Our Year 1 and 2 students are taught synthetic phonics through the rigorous and highly interactive Read Write Inc. programme. Children continue to enjoy a play based approach where they explore and develop their vocabulary in authentic settings. They gain real life writing opportunities which allow them to experiment with different spelling patterns and write for different purposes. They enjoy reading and listening to a wide range of books from our very well-stocked library.

In Years 3 and 4, our students move away from our synthetic phonics programme whilst continuing to engage in a broad and holistic approach to developing their English skills. They read novels in class, linked to their topic, to enhance their reading whilst also deepening their understanding of the underlying themes and their wider knowledge of the world. They develop their understanding of different writing devices to appeal to larger audiences. Students are given the opportunity to publish their writing in different contexts. They develop their cursive handwriting style and further develop their reading comprehension and understanding of texts through VIPERS model within reading lessons (vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval, sequencing).

In Years 5 and 6, our oldest students in Primary engage in more complex texts, to discover increasingly mature themes and improve their understanding of the ‘writer’s craft’. They present information in a range of different ways and to different audiences. They gain a better understanding of the editing process within writing and how it can be used to improve final pieces of writing. The children continue to read for pleasure and continue to enhance and refine their comprehension skills through the VIPERS approach.