At Caldecote Community Primary School the overarching aim for English is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. At Caldecote Community Primary School learning objectives in every lesson are aligned to the new National Curriculum.

 

At Caldecote Community Primary School we follow in full the new National Curriculum for English. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Reading

Reading has a high status at Caldecote and we endeavour to create fluent, life-long readers who enjoy and value books. We have a wide range of high quality reading materials to support the teaching and enjoyment of reading. Children read in school every day, individually, as a class and in small, differentiated guided reading groups. In the Foundation stage and Key Stage 1 we teach our children to read through daily phonics sessions, alongside shared reading of whole texts and guided reading. We use the Knowledge Transfer Centre strategies to deliver these. We link these three approaches to explicitly teach children a wide range of reading strategies and language comprehension techniques. We carefully and regularly assess our children’s decoding and comprehension skills ensuring children are given the correct level reading book. All of our teaching assistants are trained to deliver reading coaching. This provides children with tailored, 1-1 support. BRWP (Better Reading Writing Partnerships) has been successfully implemented in Key Stage 1, highly trained teaching assistants and the Reading Recovery teacher ensure children catch up with their peers and develop a love for reading. We encourage parents to read with their children on a daily basis and complete a reading race track. Race tracks are entered into a prize draw and the winners are announced in our celebration assembly. Children are encouraged to use the school library with many attending Reading club at lunch time. We endeavour to support our parents and children as much as possible, the Reading Recovery teacher leads fun, practical parent workshops, offering support and tips when reading at home – the children love to join in too!

Talk for Writing

A particular strategy developed by Pie Corbett. Through talk, the thinking and creative processes involved in being a writer are developed and shaped. For experienced writers, many of the creative and thinking processes involved in writing are internal and automatic. For example, many writers can hold an internal dialogue with themselves about the possible effectiveness of alternative language choices. However, for developing writers, it is very helpful if these processes can be made explicit and explored through talk in a supportive learning context.

 

Writing Sequence

Teachers at Caldecote Community Primary School use a pre-teach analysis to clearly identify the strengths and areas for development over a learning sequence. This sequence builds in the key learning elements needed to write based on the genre being studied along with identifying any gaps that need to be filled during this process. Their secure subject knowledge for improvement and progression to meet children's needs ensure that all children make progress.

 

Spelling and Handwriting

The school emphasises the importance of good spelling and handwriting through a clear policy and regular teaching across all classes.  Standards of presentation and handwriting are good.  Spelling is taught and assessed daily in all classes and handwriting is a daily activity in every class.  Good support is provided for children through displays and word lists.