Anlaby Primary School

English

English Intent Statement

At Anlaby Primary school, we believe that a high quality English curriculum should inspire and develop our children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. We aim to ensure our children develop the language and vocabulary they need, and that they are proficient in the reading and writing of Standard English, so that we can instil within all children a love of reading and writing widely and often.

We believe that our children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We strongly believe that a secure foundation in English skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a successful member of society and encourage them to aspire to greater things.

At Anlaby, we fully appreciate the importance of talk and want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening, expand their vocabulary and to be able to use discussion to communicate and further their learning. We recognise the importance of developing a nurturing culture in which children feel happy and safe and can take pride in their writing; can write clearly and accurately, and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. Through reading, we believe that pupils can become independent lifelong learners and achieve their full potential no matter their starting points.  Reading also enables pupils both to acquire new knowledge and to build on what they already know. It is our mission to make sure every child in our school becomes a fluent reader. We value reading for pleasure so highly that we ensure there is dedicated reading for pleasure time at the end of the school day. This enables children to explore books with the teachers and their peers and expand their reading horizons! We believe that all the elements of English are essential to a child’s future academic achievement, wellbeing and success in life. These skills are the key to unlocking the rest of the curriculum.

English Policy

Poetry Spine

 Long Term Plans

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Aims within the English Curriculum

The teaching of English at Anlaby Primary School aims to help pupils become fluent in reading, writing and communicating through speaking and listening.

These aims will be met in the context of English lessons as well as through cross-curricular teaching and will involve children developing:

• Understanding and using a variety of strategies to make sense of what they read.
• The ability to reflect on what they read and write.
• An understanding of the need for legible handwriting
• Knowledge and understanding of the main rules and conventions of written and spoken English.
• The confidence to speak in a range of contexts and adapt their speech appropriately.

 There are four aspects of study for English at key stage 1 and 2, these are:

 Speaking and listening

• Reading
• Writing
• Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (GPS)

By the end of the Foundation Stage children will have:

• Developed both their abilities to speak clearly and sustain their listening when interacting with others.
• Used language to develop their imagination allowing them to organise and sequence their ideas.
• Developed their phonic knowledge by hearing, saying and writing simple words and sentences.
• Explored sounds and text by listening to stories and retelling them.
• Learnt that text carries meaning and that stories have common features.
• Held a pencil effectively and used it to form recognisable letters.

By the end of key stage 1 children will be able to:

• Speak confidently and listen to what others have to say.
• Read and write independently and with enthusiasm.
• Use written and spoken language to explore both their own experiences and imaginary worlds.

By the end of key stage 2 children will be able to:

• Change the way they speak and write to suit different purposes, situations and audiences.
• Read a variety of texts and respond using inference and deduction.
• Explore how written and spoken language works and the use of language in both fiction and non-fiction texts.

 Reading

As a school, we have chosen the Read, Write Inc approach to early phonics development. For further information click here.

We are continuing to develop a system of whole class guided reading, with differentiated activities to meet the needs of all pupils within the class and wherever possible link good quality class texts to our writing genres. In earlier year groups, where sometimes whole class guided reading is not practicable, group guided reading is used to facilitate learning and progression. All year groups use a variety of different reciprocal reading activities linked to the appropriate content for individual year groups, for example prediction skills, summarising, retrieval and inference skills, context skills and dictionary skills etc. To support this, in each classroom we are continuing to develop the use of the ‘VIPERS’ reading skills prompts.

Vocabulary  Find and explain the meanings of words in context.

Infer              Make and justify inferences using evidence from the text.

Predict          Predict what might happen from the details given and implied.

Explain          Explain how content is related and contributes to the meaning as a whole. Explain how meaning is enhanced through choice of language. Explain the themes and patterns that develop across the text. Explain how information contributes to the overall experience.

Retrieve         Retrieve and record information and identify key details from fiction and non-fiction

Summarise   Summarise the main ideas from more than one paragraph.

All pupils across the school have the opportunity to change their own home reading books regularly and there are daily opportunities for whole class reading, either as individuals or by sharing a class text. Children in Foundation Stage have home reading books that are matched to their phonics ability. Children are also widely encouraged to read other books that they enjoy reading both at home and in school.

Children in Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 follow the Read Write Ink programme to support their reading, with the Letters and Sounds programme being used as an additional resource.

Writing

Our curriculum is based around a topic based approach and therefore cross-curricular writing is embedded within the writing ethos at Anlaby Primary School. When writing, all pupils are encouraged to apply their knowledge of content, grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting across all areas of the curriculum, including science, history and geography.