Teachers in the English department summarise their intentions in teaching English as to ‘inspire students to listen to the world and to find their own voice.’ More specifically, we aim:
- To provide a language-rich environment that promotes a culture of reading and writing
- To support all students to read and write confidently and fluently
- To foster in pupils the confidence, desire and ability to express their views and opinions both orally and in writing
As well as encouraging enjoyment of the subject, we intend to equip students with the confidence, necessary skills and conceptual understanding to be highly successful students of English.
The strategies we use to teach English are varied and evolve with our pupils. These strategies may include:
- Creative play or design work to encourage risk taking
- Group, paired or shared reading to develop reading accuracy and fluency
- Shared construction of texts to model writing techniques
- Deconstruction of modelled texts to identify conventions
- Using writing frames to structure responses to topics
- Role play and drama techniques used to understand characters and themes
- Over learning to ensure thorough knowledge of topics
- Group work or working in teams to encourage lateral thinking
- Using the stimulus for writing to develop creativity
- Incorporation of technology such as ICT, internet or apps
- Use of moving and still images to storyboard ideas for narratives
- Use of voice activated software to support the writing process.
KS2
Our main objective in Key Stage 2 is to foster in children a love of reading. They will be encouraged to develop their confidence in reading and nurture their imagination from a wide range of literary texts from all genres.
Children will be encouraged to read with fluency and understanding, utilising a combination of strategies including phonic knowledge, contextual clues and sight vocabulary. Children’s awareness of syntax, punctuation, expression and comprehension will be developed and assessed through explicit teaching of reading as well as individual reading. Oral language has a key role in classroom teaching and learning. Discussion and interaction can engage children’s imagination and foster creativity.
In our school the key areas are:
- Speaking: being able to speak clearly and to develop and sustain ideas in talk.
- Listening: developing active listening strategies and critical skills of analysis.
- Group discussion and interaction: taking different roles in groups, making a range of contributions and working collaboratively.
Talk is an underlying factor in the development of literacy, with children engaging by responding to text and explaining their choices and rehearsing their ideas in advance of writing.
KS3
Our Key Stage 3 curriculum aims to be rich, diverse and challenging, while offering all students access to it.
We recognise the importance of discussion in the classroom and aim to promote student talk and the expression of ideas in lessons. We aim not to reduce teaching writing to coded acronyms, but rather encourage students to express themselves confidently and to trust that they have something important to say about literature and language to combat the anxiety of not knowing what to say or in what form to say it and the habit of wanting to know ‘the answer’.
Parents and carers can help children progress in English by encouraging them to read for pleasure every day and by discussing their reading with them.
Parent Portal
Parents can find specific curriculum information in their child’s termly ICM reports. These can be accessed via the Parent Portal: https://schoolbase.online
