English

English Coordinator Team: Mrs G Crampton, Miss E Storey, Mrs L Morgan, Mrs J Malthouse

Governor with the responsibility for Pupil Premium: Mark Wilkinson

The teaching of English across school is rigorous and robust with a clear structure taught consistently across the school. 24% of our pupils have English as an additional language and 25% access Pupil Premium funding. Our commitment to ensuring that all pupils can read, write and speak in English whilst enjoying their learning is crucial to us. Our passion is to ensure this is evident.

Pupil Progress is rapid and consistent due to:

• Phonological Development within continuous provision and focus activities daily in our Nursery
• Consistent approach in the teaching of Phonics and handwriting across the school
• A robust spelling programme continues once Phonics programme is completed
• Vocabulary developed from Time to Talk in Reception, to ‘Word of the Day in Y6
• Lesson starters revisiting prior knowledge and monitoring what pupils know and can remember
• Guided reading groups teaching reading comprehension skills consistently from Y1 to Y6
• Vocabulary developed through cross curricular links and practical opportunities
• Speaking and Listening developed through Show and Tell’ in Early Years to drama activities and performance poetry in KS2.
• High expectations of handwriting and presentation once handwriting programme completed with the incentive of a pen license!
• Author visits and enrichment opportunities to develop vocabulary and experiences
• Debate Club to develop opinion and presentation skills
• Class Libraries developed through pupil voice
• Specific intervention workshops across school
• National Tutoring programme – before and after school

English in Early Years-

In our Early Years, the development of literacy skills are interlinked with communication and language skills.  Our Early Year environments offer broad and rich language opportunities to support the children to have high quality interactions with their peers and supportive adults.

Conversations are key to language development and our routines offer dedicated time to talk alongside spontaneous conversations that happen during child led play.

Skilled adults listen, support and extend ideas during these conversations and ensure effective language development occurs.

A priority here at FMPS is to foster a love of reading in our children.  In Early Years our children are frequently read to, engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and songs, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, that will give the children the opportunity to thrive.

Our fun and enriching opportunities range from dressing up as characters, acting out stories, listening to local Author Adam Bushnell telling stories live and presenting performances to our friends and family on a stage. Our Book of the week, word of the day and opportunities to speak freely about our individual interests each day helps us to develop our speaking and listening skills and learn from each other. By immersing children in books, we ensure they have a wide vocabulary and are increasingly able to understand what they have read. As their understanding of words develops, we teach the children about the importance of sounds.  Our youngest children learn through developing their phonological awareness before being ready to move onto phonic learning.  Alongside this the children are also learning the skills needed to develop into confident writers.  Across the EYFS, children are given opportunities to develop their fine motor skills allowing them to develop proficiency, control and confidence in activities such as holding their pencil.  In learning to write we encourage children to explore a variety of ways to make marks before beginning to put meaning to them.  With careful support and encouragement children then move to representing letters before eventually learning to form them correctly in words using their phonic knowledge

Phonics is taught using the Read Write Inc. scheme – Reception pupils continue to build on their fine motor skills and then learn basic letter formation through daily Read, Write, Inc lessons. Children then apply this to learn to read and to start to structure simple sentence writing. A cross curricular book of the week is chosen to develop a love of reading and extend vocabulary.

English in Key Stage One

Building on children’s strong start in Reception, children continue to access daily Read, Write, Inc sessions to maintain rapid progress. Children continue their love of reading through high quality texts, carefully selected to develop comprehension, vocabulary and grammar skills. Children are also exposed to a range of authors/ genres by class teachers (often with cross-curricular links) reading aloud to model appropriate reading skills.

By the end of Key Stage One, children will be able to read with accuracy, fluency and expression.

Children continue to learn how to construct sentences, applying their phonics knowledge, learning to spell common exception words correctly. Read, Write Inc’s handwriting programme is followed and pupils can form legible joined up hand writing by the end of Y2.

English in Key Stage Two

Comprehension skills are taught through a variety of higher-level genres which are carefully selected to link to other areas of the curriculum. Children practise comprehension skills through retrieval of information and development of inference skills, responding to different layers of meaning. Develop understanding and appreciation of a range of fiction and non-fiction texts, commenting on, purpose, audience, language choice, sentence structure, format and style. Children will develop their reading fluency and stamina.

Children will foster real a love of reading through modelled reading of a whole class text, children have many opportunities to read a range of texts for both purpose and pleasure including texts relating to social, cultural and historical traditions.

Pupils will be taught to control their speaking and writing consciously and to use Standard English appropriately, while understanding that different forms of language are appropriate at different times and to create appropriate effects.

We teach children the writing process is continual and children are encouraged to plan, revise and evaluate their writing themselves and with their peers in order to become effective writers in the future for a range of career prospects.

Career Links:

English is paramount to a variety of career possibilities. We feel that it is important that pupils know the skills required for different careers. Here are a selection of possible occupations that require a strong grasp of English skills.

By the end of their journey at FMPS, we want to ensure that children have acquired the relevant skills, knowledge and confidence to allow them to be successful in the next stage of their learning and beyond.

Becoming an Author

You will need:

• persistence and determination
• ambition and a desire to succeed
• organisation and adaptability
• creativity and imagination
• excellent written communication skills
• excellent verbal communication skills
• Research skills
• knowledge of English language
• Editing and redrafting skills
• knowledge of media production and communication
• (digital literacy)

Early Years

• Development of strong fine motor skills
• Develop the foundations of hand writing which is fast and accurate
• Listen to and talk about stories to build familiarity, understanding and to extend vocabulary
• Re-read what they have written to check it makes sense
• Engage in activities promoting large shoulder movements to increase finger control

Key Stage One

• Write a sentence that makes sense using capital letters and full stops.
• Construct and extend sentences.
• Punctuate a range of sentences.
• Use descriptive language.
• Write short narratives using a simple plan (story board/ flow chart).
• Make simple changes to writing.
• Evaluate use of word choice, grammar and punctuation.
• Spell phonetically plausible words.
• Build on knowledge of spelling Common Exception Words.

Key Stage Two

• Use a full range of punctuation accurately
• Use a wide range of sentence structures
• Use varied and rich vocabulary to compliment purpose
• Identifies purpose and audience of the writing
• Create settings, narratives and plot in narratives
• Assesses the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing and suggests improvements
• Uses the full range of spelling rules and patterns from the National Curriculum.

 Becoming an Editor

You will need:

• knowledge of English language
• knowledge of media production and communication
• the ability to read English
• excellent verbal communication skills
• to be thorough and pay attention to detail
• excellent written communication skills
• the ability to work well with others
• to be flexible and open to change
• to be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently

Early Years

• Read simple words and phrases
• Draw on phonic knowledge to decode words and my knowledge of language structure, subject knowledge and illustrations to interpret the text
• Re-read simple books to develop understanding and enjoyment of the text

Key Stage One

• Reads most words quickly and accurately, without overt sounding and blending, when they have been encountered frequently
• Demonstrates understanding of what is read independently, or listened to, by drawing on own knowledge, and information and vocabulary provided
• Participates in discussions, offering opinions and explanations for these about books, poems and other materials

Key Stage Two

• Reads confidently, fluently and effortlessly a range of age-appropriate texts including novels, plays, poetry, non-fiction, reference and text books
• Reads for a range of purposes – for pleasure and to find information
• Identifies key details that support main ideas, and uses them to summarise content drawn from more than one paragraph.
• Assesses the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing and suggests improvements

Becoming an actor/actress:

You will need:

• Determination and willingness to succeed
• Ability to change tones of voice for a purpose and audience
• Work well with others and hold a conversation
• Ability to read English
• Confidence

Early Years

• Tell stories in their own way
• Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences in play situations
• Listen to ideas expressed by others in conversation or discussion
• Read simple sentences made up from words with knowing sound/ letter correspondences and with the odd common exception words

Key Stage One:

• Can sustain the attention of the listener
• Will express characters’ thoughts and feelings in imaginative play and uses words and phrases appropriate words, phrases and sentences
• Use speech that is consistently easy to understand and clear.
• Will change their voice and use expression to engage the listener and keep them interested.
• Knows that they need to use different styles of talk with different people

Key Stage Two:

• Adapt the structure of talk in ways which support meaning and show attention to the listener
• Tell elaborate and entertaining stories.
• Is able to structure their talk to meet the needs of their listeners
• Demonstrates the ability to adapt a character to different scenarios and is able to sustain a role effectively.
• Can confidently vary grammar and vocabulary to suit the audience, purpose and/or context.
• Shows an ability to vary delivery and tone to convey meaning and to match to the needs of the audience.

Useful Resources:

• Oxford Owl for School and Home – https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/
• Oxford Reading Buddy https://www.oxfordreadingbuddy.com/uk
• Ruth Miskin Portal https://www.ruthmiskin.com/
• Books for Topics – https://www.booksfortopics.com/
• Topmarks KS1 Spelling and Grammar, English games for 3 -5 years
• https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/3-5-years/letters-and-sounds
• Topmarks KS1 Spelling and Grammar, English games5 -7 year olds https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds
• Top marks, Ks2 Spelling and Grammar, English games for 7 -11 year olds https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/7-11-years/spelling-and-grammar
• Fun English games for EYFS/KS1/KS2 Fun online KS1 and KS2 English games for kids – BBC Bitesize – BBC Bitesize Fun online KS1 and KS2 English games for kids – BBC Bitesize – BBC Bitesize
• Ictgames – Range of Spelling and Grammar Games https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy.html

You can view our English Policy below:

• English Policy

You can view our Progression Grids below:

• Writing Progression Grid
• Reading Progression Grid

Examples of our Literacy work:

• Literacy Home Learning – Ladybird Class

You can view photos of our English Lessons below:

• English Lesson Photos