English
The aims of the English Curriculum at Walsgrave are:
• To build spoken language skills, developing speakers who communicate with clarity and confidence in a range of meaningful contexts
• To broaden vocabulary and instigate a curiosity about words
• To inspire a love of reading
• To develop fluent readers who read for enjoyment and for information and across the globe
• To develop excellent writers who write with clarity, accuracy and coherence for a range of purposes and audiences
• To build transcriptional knowledge and skills including grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting.
Delivering the English Curriculum at Walsgrave:
Early Reading and Writing skills start in Early Years, where children are taught communication, language and literacy through engaging learning opportunities based on stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems.
In Years 1-6, English is planned and delivered following the Inspire Education Trust’s own English long-term plan. Children’s skills are developed through cohesive units of work based around high quality texts or writing genres, building to purposeful writing opportunities.
From Nursery to Year 6, chosen texts ensure coverage of classic stories, contemporary fiction and a range of traditional tales, including myths and legends, within each year group, and texts have been mapped to ensure progression across the school.
Reading at Walsgrave:
Our approach to the teaching of reading ensures focus on both of the key dimensions needed to become effective readers – Word Reading and Language Comprehension. To support our young readers, we provide banded bookmarks that share reading strategies and support parents with possible comprehension questions at home.
Word Reading:
Phonics is the predominant way we teach Word Reading and we use Read Write Inc. as our phonics programme.
Daily Supported Reader
Daily Supported Reading is a proven approach to the teaching of early reading, designed by Hackney Services for Schools. The Daily Supported Reading programme allows children to read, discuss and comprehend natural language texts which have been specially created for language acquisition and language comprehension. The programme is finely attuned to ensure children become fluent readers who are independently motivated. Children:
• read stories on their own right from the start
• learn to respond to and engage with new ideas and information (cultural capital)
• are taught how to access information with increasing autonomy
• learn to problem solve independently while keeping a story or message in mind (global comprehension.
• books are matched to children’s reading level and adults complete regular assessment on feedback to ensure this is accurate
Core Text to Support English Teaching:
Recommended Reads at Walsgrave
Comprehension:
We employ various approaches employed to develop children’s comprehension skills. These include:
