The more children are encouraged to talk about their thoughts and ideas, and the more we take these seriously, the greater their intellectual development will be. And obviously their talking will have a positive impact on the development of their language generally – the way they create their sentences and the words that they use. This, in turn, will have positive effects on their reading and writing.
Our English curriculum revolves around key texts so that the valuable experience of learning through real books and high quality literature is deeply embedded in the way children learn to read and write.
Throughout the school, teachers plan a wide range of activities linked to these books to ensure that the decoding and comprehension skills needed for reading, and the technical skills needed for writing are given a purpose. Spelling, punctuation, grammar and phonics are taught explicitly as well as through texts.
Children are encouraged to write creatively, often inspired by the texts they are reading in class, and the quality of writing produced is a real strength of the school.
In the Early Years and Key Stage One, the children will work from a large number of texts. In Key Stage Two, the children will spend longer on each text, studying the books, characters and stories in more detail. Our class texts for each year group in KS2, as well as the main genres studied, include:
Year 3
Genres studied: Play scripts, information texts, recounts, traditional poems, adventure and spooky stories, persuasive writing, performance poetry, fables, instructions and explanations, and humorous poems.
Year 4
Genres studied: stories from imaginary worlds, mystery stories, stories with a dilemma, information texts, recounts, riddles, kennings, limericks and haiku poems, persuasive writing, instructions and performance poetry.
Year 5
Genres studied: stories with a flashback, Science Fiction, information texts, biographies and autobiographies, performance poetry, myths, recounts, discussion texts, classic poetry, persuasive writing and newspaper reports.
Year 6
Genres studied: history-based stories, information texts, biographies and autobiographies, classic poetry, recounts, instructions, discussion texts, classic poetry, persuasive writing and newspaper reports.
Click HERE for an overview of the Grammar and Punctuation objectives taught in each year group.
Click HERE for an overview of the spelling patterns and word lists for each year group.
