In this section of the website, you will find information about our approach to teaching English at Howletch Lane Primary School.
- Year 1 writing Curriculum
- Year 2 writing Curriculum
- Year 3 writing Curriculum
- Year 4 writing Curriculum
- Year 5 writing Curriculum
- Year 6 writing Curriculum
Intent
At Howletch Primary School we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. 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 cultivating 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 arts of speaking and listening and who can use discussion to develop their learning. We believe that a thorough grasp of 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.
We give all children the opportunity to enter the magical worlds that books open up to them. We promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading curriculum. Children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors and to review their books objectively. This enhances a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles.
Implementation
The 2014 National Curriculum states that:
‘English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Through reading in particular, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know.’
These aims are embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum. We have a rigorous and well organised English curriculum that provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion. We use a wide variety of quality texts and resources to motivate and inspire our children. Each day, children take part in Whole Class Reading lessons whereby the teacher tactfully selects rich texts to enable discussion, excitement and development of language, which in turn, inspires our children to incorporate language from these texts in their own writing.
We also provide a wealth of enrichment opportunities, from hosting World Book Day, Poetry Competitions, Reading Challenges in collaboration with the local libraries and even running regular Skype sessions with well-known illustrators and local authors.
All teachers ensure to plan stimulating English lessons which incorporate Outdoor Learning, ICT, collaborative learning so that children are excited and enthused in their lessons, leading to a strong motivation to write. It is through our rigorous marking policy that we can give children ‘live’ feedback about their learning in the lesson; which enables children to adjust their learning based on the instant feedback provided by teachers and teaching and learning assistants. At Howletch Primary School, we believe it is highly important to give children feedback that is rich and meaningful so that they are aware of their triumphs and those areas that they need to be focussing on, as well as providing a platform for teacher and child discussion whereby children feel confident to address misconceptions and raise any thoughts and feelings about their learning.
Impact
As a result we have a community of enthusiastic readers and writers who enjoy showcasing their developing literacy skills. They are confident to take risks in their reading and writing, and love to discuss and share their ideas.
English in the Early Years:
English is one of the seven aspects to the Early Years Framework, known as Literacy and is fundamental to enable a child’s successful development of Reading and Writing as they progress throughout the rest of the school.
In Early Years, we promote early Reading and Writing in children as young as two as we believe it underpins their natural curiosity of storytelling and early mark marking.
In Nursery, Pre-school and Reception, we carefully plan for Literacy throughout our continuous provision, enabling mark making and early sound recognition throughout their independent time. Within every area of the classroom we can provide opportunities for children to mark make, for example, in the Construction Area, we provide simple slips of paper for the children to ‘name and label’ their creations so that we know it is theirs. In Reception, we have introduced ‘Deconstructed Role Play’ to ignite early writing in all children, though particularly those who are a little more reluctant to write, so that they are able to design and make their own role play scenes and use marks to represent their ideas, thoughts and feelings. Throughout Early, we provide fun and exciting reading activities for children including; fishing out sounds from the water tray, squirting different phonemes using water guns as well as taking books into the outdoor areas for children to enjoy while sitting on the grass.
In Nursery and Pre-school, children begin to explore Phase One Phonics and will learnt to discriminate between environmental, instrumental and body sounds as well as beginning to develop and awareness of rhyme, alliteration and oral sound blending.
In Reception, we begin to teach individual phonemes, starting with Phase Two. During daily Phonics sessions we can teach children to discriminate between different phonemes as well as teaching them to segment and blend sounds in words to read them.
In addition to this, we share a love for reading with various stories that can be shared with the children. Every term, we focus on a high-quality text and provide opportunities for the children to sequence, re-tell and use role play to develop their own ideas of storytelling.
