Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum for English which provides a clear pathway for progression as children advance through the primary curriculum.

Our English lessons develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary but our staff are constantly seeking opportunities to develop these skills in other areas of the curriculum. We use ‘Talk for Writing’ style activities to develop our pupils’ speaking and listening skills. These skills are an important part of our wider curriculum with many opportunities given to develop confident communication and presentational techniques.

As we begin our reading journey, children in Reception and Key Stage One have daily phonics lessons following the ‘Read, Write, Inc’ programme. Phonics support is continued through school as long as is necessary. Alongside the ‘Read, Write, Inc’ programme, we use texts from the Oxford Reading Tree and the Big Cat Reading Programme to support the teaching of reading. However, we always ensure that at the early stages, reading materials are closely matched to children’s phonics knowledge.  Our other reading books are book banded to ensure progression. As our children become fluent and competent readers, reading lessons become the focus to develop the children’s retrieval and inferential skills, alongside a key emphasis on vocabulary which extends to all subjects. VIPERS materials are used to support he teaching of reading skills. Children are exposed to high quality texts throughout their time in our school and staff share and promote a love of reading.

Our approach to the teaching of writing is book based and cross curricular links are made wherever possible.  We base the teaching of our writing on Pie Corbett's ‘Talk for Writing’, and tailor this to the needs of our pupils. Materials from The Literacy Tree are also used to supplement our approach.  Wherever possible, grammar is taught through high quality texts. Both spelling and handwriting are taught in discrete lessons but children are encouraged, when editing, to independently improve their work. Spelling Shed is used to support the development of spelling skills.Staff carefully select the texts that are used to provide aspirational examples so the children can become the best writers they can be.