ENGLISH

INTENT:

Reading

At Snape, we believe that the teaching of reading is integral to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves.  We want the children to create a life-long love of reading and books. For every child to be able to read for pleasure and allow them to access the full curriculum. Through reading, children will improve language and vocabulary, inspire imagination and give everyone the opportunity to develop and foster new interests.  We want children to read enough that they gain enjoyment from it,  see the benefit in reading, as well as gain an understanding of grammatically correct language and sentences.  

Writing

We want children to aquire a life-long knowledge and understanding of writing and to be able to communicate their knowledge, ideas and thoughts through their work, across the curriculum.  Over time at Snape, they will learn these skills to make them proficient writers;

• Encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing by developing a continuous cursive handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school. 

• Learn the different stages of writing processes (plan, draft and edit)

• Know how different texts are structured

• Develop accuracy in grammar, punctuation and spelling 

• Appropriate, rich and varied vocabulary is taught and used across the curriculum 

• Be capable of writing at length while maintaining a sense of audience, purpose and organisation

IMPLEMENTATION:

Reading and Writing

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum; the children are not only given opportunities to read in English lessons, but in the wider curriculum too.  Our curriculum is delivered through  shared and guided reading, home reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent reading and hearing quality texts read aloud every day. 

At Snape, our writing links directly to the class books that we are reading and these are linked, where possible to the topics that the children are studying that term. When studying each book, the children will learn about genres of writing that relate to the book. They will be immersed in this type of writing, learning how to replicate the features, exploring the writing structure and identifying the purpose and audience. A strong focus is placed on handwriting and time is given  to the development of this important skill. 

We use high quality texts and share class stories and novels which capture the children’s interests and engage them in writing.  Where possible, writing is given a real purpose and the children are provided with the opportunity to write from first-hand experience.  

Children at Snape have 5 English sessions per week, an hour long, which include both reading and writing.  Children in Recpetion and Key Stage 1 have 30 minute phonic/spelling sessions every day and in Key Stage 2,  they have 2 spelling sessions per week. We follow the Essential Letters and Sounds phonics scheme in Reception and Year 1, and Year 2 follow the same scheme for spelling, to ensure consistency - this is a s a DfE validated systematic synthetic phonics programme. All teachers follow a comprehensive English Curriculum Map which is regularly updated to ensure quality texts and new teaching ideas are being used.

IMPACT:

Reading

Most children at Snape will leave in Year 6 having developed the reading and comprehension skills required  for their age expected standards.  They will see themselves as confident readers and they will have developed a passion for reading, not just for now, but also later in life.

Writing
Children at Snape will have developed writing skills so that they have the stamina and ability to write at the age expected standard. Most children will be fluent, independent writers who are able to express their thoughts and exchange ideas through writing and to see themselves as authors.