Bickershaw Church of England Primary School

English

English at Bickershaw Church of England Primary School 

Intent:

Our overarching aim of English at Bickershaw Church of England Primary School is to: ignite a love of texts so that children can find out more about the world around them, have literate children who develop the necessary life skills for future employment and to encourage confident children who can communicate their ideas successfully to others.

Drivers:

Our English curriculum will be underpinned by the drivers of heritage, initiative and possibility.

1. Heritage - Have a secure reading level to enhance all areas of the curriculum through wider reading and have experience of a wide range of texts, including those from classic British authors.
2. Initiative - Develop the skills to be critical and independent thinkers when analysing and comparing texts, selecting key information and reflected upon an author’s choices.
3. Possibility - By learning the necessary skills for speaking and listening, reading and writing, our children will have a range of possibilities open to them to achieve their ambitions.  

Ambition:

At Bickershaw Church of England Primary School we strive for children to be ‘Literate Pupils’ who:

• Have an interest in books and read for enjoyment
• Have developed and used a range of phonic skills in reading and writing, throughout the Foundation Stage and Key Stage One.
• Use and extend their skills in order to move away from ‘learning to read’ towards ‘reading to learn’.
• Have an interest in words, their meanings; developing a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms.
• Understand a range of text types and genres – be able to write in a variety of styles and forms appropriate to the situation.
• Are developing the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.
• Have a suitable technical vocabulary to articulate their responses.
• Read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding, orchestrating a range of independent strategies to self-monitor and correct.

Curriculum Overview:

Key Stage One (Years 1 and 2):

In Year 1, children should build on their knowledge from the Early Years Stage, making sure that they can sound and blend unfamiliar printed words quickly and accurately using the phonic knowledge and skills that they have already learnt. Alongside, children will hear, share and discuss a wide range of high quality books to develop a love of reading, an understanding of texts and broaden their vocabulary. When writing, children will begin to develop their spelling skills and handwriting, and learn how to organise their ideas. These skills will be further built on and developed in Year 2.

Key Stage Two (Years 3-6):

In Year 3, children will focus on understanding what they read as decoding skills become more secure. Children will be developing their understanding and enjoyment of a range of different books and they should be learning to justify their views about what they have read increasingly independently. By Year 5, children should be able to read most words effortlessly and to work out how to pronounce unfamiliar written words with increasing automaticity. Throughout KS2, writing should be increasingly accurate with advancing sentence punctuation building on what they have already learnt. By the end of year 6, pupils’ reading and writing should be sufficiently fluent and effortless across all subjects and not just in English in preparation for transition into Secondary School.

More detailed information, regarding what is specifically taught in each year group, can be found in our Progression documents at https://www.bickershaw.wigan.sch.uk/virtual-office/school-curriculum-information 

Links to our other web pages:

You can find information about the teaching of Phonics and useful resources at: 

https://www.bickershaw.wigan.sch.uk/virtual-office/school-curriculum-information/phonics-and-reading

You can find information about what we are doing to support the teaching of Reading and how we are encouraging a love of books at: 

https://www.bickershaw.wigan.sch.uk/virtual-office/school-curriculum-information/reading

Useful Websites to develop children's English skills: 

	All areas of English	Vocabulary	Reading - Decoding	Reading - Comprehension	Reading - Enjoying Texts	Writing - A Stimulus for Writing
KS1
KS2