English Curriculum Statement
English
English is an eco-system that encompasses various elements that all work together to make every child literate. Here at Queen Victoria Primary School, we want every child to become a speaker, a reader and a writer in order to prepare them for life at school and beyond.
Phonics
To support the teaching of reading and writing in the EYFS and KS1, we teach Phonics at Queen Victoria Primary School through the validated scheme ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised’ in order to adhere to recent ‘DFE guidelines’. We use the corresponding texts from ‘Big Cat Collins’. We have also been part of a DfE Reading project in conjunction with Little Sutton English Hub which has enabled ‘early reading’ at Queen Victoria to go from strength to strength.
Speaking, listening and vocabulary
Speaking and listening opportunities are vital in the EYFS and beyond at Queen Victoria Primary School. Talk, drama, role-play and speaking and listening opportunities are carefully planned into the English curriculum in order for children at Queen Victoria to be able to express themselves and confidently articulate an answer. Opportunities for teachers to enhance pupils’ vocabulary arise naturally from their reading and writing. We teach pupils how to work out and clarify the meanings of unknown words and words with more than one meaning. Teachers also teach pupils the vocabulary they need to discuss their reading, writing and spoken language. It is important for pupils to learn the correct grammatical terms in English and that these terms are integrated within lessons (please see writing below for more links to grammatical features).
Reading
Reading is explicitly taught through quality texts that inspire and engage the children. In Reception and KS1, reading practice sessions are ‘flood filled’ with adults to ensure that all children have high quality teaching of early reading skills. Children in EYFS and KS1 read books at home that match their current phonic phase and support them on the journey to becoming a fluent reader. We approach the teaching of reading in KS2, through whole class reading sessions across the week. We use Reading Vipers (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval, and Sequencing/Summarising) recorded in reading journals. More reading is embedded within the main English session daily. In KS2 we use ‘Accelerated Reader’ to foster independent reading. It allows teachers to monitor the reading development and practices of their pupils, and provides tools to quickly ascertain their reading level, reading age and comprehension level.
We also aim to develop a ‘love of reading’ here at Queen Victoria Primary School. We promote teachers reading aloud to their classes daily and engaging with a wide variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts. We want the pupils to be exposed to a wide diet of literature where they can fully immerse themselves in ‘book talk’.
Writing
We take children through a journey in order to improve them as writers. We want children to be driven to write by purpose. These include: to create, to entertain, to express, to persuade, to inform and to record. Writing is a creative art and a form of expression that allows pupils at Queen Victoria Primary School to have a voice and express themselves. Our writing process is blocked into units of work. Firstly, children are exposed to a particular quality text where they learn about particular key features and techniques, being exposed to what makes it a quality example. The children are taught the punctuation and grammar skills needed in order to create a final piece of writing. Most grammar, punctuation and vocabulary elements are taught in context of the text. This allows the metalanguage of grammar to be ‘caught as well as explicitly taught’ (see our writing tab below for more information).
We use the ‘No-nonsense Spelling’ programme in order to teach the spelling content and lists taken from the National Curriculum. We also promote Nelson handwriting which children practise daily.