English
English
In English we will provide for the language development of pupils and will extend and build upon their ability to use language to think, explore, recognise and communicate their ideas.
We will teach children specific oracy, reading and writing skills which are then embedded across the curriculum throughout the day.
Our children will be literate so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others effectively.
We will inspire our children to have a passion for reading. Our children will encounter a variety of rich texts which are thought provoking and engaging.
We have chosen texts which:
- Enable pupils to encounter characters, situations and viewpoints that mirror their own.
- Share circumstances and settings with pupils where social, cultural backgrounds and values differ from their own.
Our children will benefit from regular practice of reading skills including explicit teaching of developing reading fluency. We will explore different ways of engaging with texts and respond to them in different ways.
If required, we will continue to have discrete 20-30 minute phonic sessions using the HIS synthetic systematic phonics programme to maintain consistency between the Infant and Junior schools.
We use Accelerated Reader to help us keep a track of our progress, choose suitable books relevant to our age/ability and develop reading for pleasure.
We use the Library and Book Club sessions to help us find engaging reading material including recommendations from other teachers and pupils.
In Writing, our children learn about different writing styles. We read model texts of a particular genre and identify the key features. We follow the writing process by planning, drafting, revising, editing and publishing our work.
The teaching of writing is ‘broken down’ to accelerate and support progress using the ‘I DO, WE DO, YOU DO’ approach.
We practise our basic ‘transciption’ skills during English fluency sessions to help our writing become more automatic and cohesive. English fluency sessions are made up of spelling and handwriting practice.
In spelling, we study the etymology (where words came from) and morphology (the internal structure of words). We break down our spelling words into syllables and where appropriate phonemes to help us learn how to spell them.
Our Handwriting scheme is called ‘Letter Join. We use “Letter-join’s” online handwriting resource and lesson planner as the basis of our handwriting, as it covers all the requirements of the National Curriculum. Although we use the fonts described below when explicitly teaching handwriting, we recognise that children are exposed to a variety of fonts when reading text. Therefore, around Hartford Junior School there will be different fonts used on displays etc.
In KS2 we use the font Letter-join No-lead. This is a joined font, without lead in lines.
We believe that every child should leave primary school with excellent English skills and continually assess pupils’ progress to determine how to ‘Bring Out the Best in Everyone’.
We celebrate our pupils’ writing during our half termly VIP Writing Assembly.
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