English
Children are exposed to high quality texts that stimulate quality responses to reading, high quality writing and purposeful speaking and listening opportunities.
Writing
Our curriculum ensures that all children have plenty of opportunities to write for different purposes. We encourage writing through all curriculum areas and use quality reading texts to model examples of good writing. Writing is taught through a number of different strategies. We believe that children need lots of rich speaking and drama activities to give them the imagination and the experiences that will equip them to become good writers.
As a school we have adopted “The Write Stuff” by Jane Constantine to bring clarity to the mechanics of writing. “The Write Stuff” follows a method called “Sentence Stacking” which refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing. An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken in to three chunks:
- Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.
- Model section – the teacher close models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.
- Enable section – the children write their sentence, following the model.
“The Write Stuff” also reinforces grammar through the use of:
The FANTASTICs which are an acronym that summarise the ideas of writing
The Grammar Rainbow is a classroom tool that enables the teacher to drive key grammar messages.
The BOOMTASTIC which helps children capture 10 ways of adding drama and poetic devices to writing in a vivid visual
Phonics
At Shoscombe we have adopted Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our phonics programme. This programme aims to build on children’s speaking and listening skills as well as preparing children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills.
Our phonics teaching starts in EYFS, with the aim of all children becoming fluent readers as they move into Key Stage 2.
Find out more on our Phonics page.
Spelling
Children progress through a highly structured programme using “No nonsense Spelling”.
Whole Class Reading
We have moved away from the carousel approach to guided reading where the children are split into ability groups and now have focused reading lessons once/ twice a week in this group with a class teacher to a whole class model. The whole class model has had a huge impact on progress in reading in schools nationally. All children read the text together every day and then carry out differentiated tasks related to the book. RIC starters (see below) are used as the basis for the questions.
The Library
With support of FOSSA and the hard work of Mrs Harries our School Librarian and her Year 6 Library Assistants, we have developed a high quality library. The library is used throughout the day and the daily lunchtime club is very popular. It has helped develop the important habit of reading amongst our pupils. As well as having the library each class is developing a themed reading area.
How you can help at home
We have produced these leaflets to help you support your child at home with English:
For further information please read the National Curriculum English Programmes of Study.
