English at The Crescent Primary school

English Curriculum Statement

At the Crescent Primary, English is a core foundation across all of our curriculum subjects and reading and writing skills are applied in a range of contexts. In line with our REACH school values (resilience, evaluative, ask questions, challenge and help one another), opportunities to achieve these values are embedded within our English curriculum. We want our children to develop a love of language and this is vital to develop their ability to enquire, respond and express themselves. We seek for our children to ask questions and become evaluative of what they are accessing and creating. We aspire for our children to engage with our curriculum with enjoyment and wonder. We believe reading underpins all aspects of the curriculum. High quality teaching of reading is fundamental to our practise; therefore, independent application of reading is widely embedded across the curriculum to allow learners to enquire, discover and grow curious minds. We teach reading through a blend of whole class teaching and individual ability group texts which are progressive across all key stages. Throughout our curriculum, we focus on making sure that all children are fluent in the 8 skills of a reader: Making links when we read; Making predictions; Visualising what we read; Making inferences; Noticing if it doesn't make sense; Having strategies to 'fix' our reading if it doesn't make sense; Noticing new words and bringing all of our knowledge together! When children have mastered all of these eight skills, they will be confident, life-long readers! Most importantly, we value reading for pleasure – walk around our school and you will see our shared love of books in our classrooms, outdoor spaces (The Book Barn), our woodland library and from through the enthusiasm staff and pupils.

In writing, children follow a learning journey of skills progressions which leads to a specific and purposeful outcome. It is important for our pupil’s development that journeys offer links between taught units, lessons and year groups to ensure they are progressive and sequential. Our journeys are purposeful with audiences and varied forms of publications – often applied across the curriculum in other subjects. They begin with exploration and immersion of language and form, followed by application of grammar whilst practising their writing craft. Teachers will use assessment for learning throughout the journey to adapt and intervene to support and challenge pupils. Finally, opportunities to draft, produce and evaluate their writing, with editing and evaluation forming an on-going part of our craft as writers. Excitingly, children are always provided with an exciting way to publish and celebrate their final pieces as authors, which supports their confidence in themselves as authors.

In Phonics, we follow the Essential Letters and Sounds programme from the beginning of Reception. Essential Letters and Sounds is a phonics programme which consists of six phases. The programme builds progressively, beginning with learning the initial letter sounds and gradually building on these to blend and then read whole words. We believe that children learn to read more confidently when they have a picture to associate with a sound and this strategy is used throughout the school to help the children become fluent readers. The children will follow this programme throughout EYFS and Key Stage 1 and will use this as their basis for spelling throughout their school journey.

In spelling, we follow the No Nonsense Spelling scheme which is taught discretely on a daily basis across the year groups. Children are expected to apply taught skills across all writing opportunities, using dictionaries and thesauruses when necessary to promote independence. Weekly homework across the school is linked to Phonics (KS1) and Spelling (KS2). Spelling is a key focus across our curriculum and will form part of the verbal and written feedback given to support pupils. Our classrooms displays for vocabulary reflect new words that the children have learnt and their meanings. Although English is taught through the strands of phonics, reading, writing, spelling and grammar, our ethos is to ensure learning encompasses all of these taught skills and children are given regular and purposeful opportunities to apply these across the curriculum.

Equality Statement

At The Crescent Primary School we aim to give equal access and entitlement to the English curriculum for all children.   We teach the skills of English to all children, whatever their ability, as outlined within the schools' curriculum policy to provide a broad and balanced education to all children.   We provide learning opportunities that are matched to the needs of children with learning difficulties, including those pupils who have individualised Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). Appropriate provision will be made for the S.E.N.D pupils and the more able pupils and there will be equal access for all children regardless of gender, race, circumstance and ability. We believe that equal opportunity to develop oral, written and evaluative skills are imperative to children being able to access the wider curriculum and develop into expressive and evaluative members of society. The teaching of these skills link closely to our REACH curriculum statements within planning, lessons and outcomes. 

The English curriculum ensures that pupils study a wide range of genres and authors, which demonstrate a range of diverse backgrounds through: culture, race, ethnicity, gender, disability, disadvantage and experience.

Please click on the links below to view:

Phonics  and Reading Scheme

The phonics scheme we follow is Essential Letters and Sounds.

Our reading scheme is Oxford Owl.