We want Grateley children to develop a love of reading that stays with them for the rest of their lives. Children read every day at school, and we encourage, promote and value regular reading at home. Our school library is an integral part of our approach to encouraging reading for pleasure and the children really enjoy having time to relax on the bean bags and enjoy a book. We also encourage children to join the local library and promote programmes such as the Summer Reading Challenge.

English learning units are based on high quality texts chosen to ensure that children have access to a wide range of genres, fiction and non- fiction, heritage and contemporary texts from our own literary heritage and beyond.

Good writing follows on from talk and reading, if a child wants to write something, they need to be able to say it. Frequent opportunities to develop talk through play, discussion and drama ensure that children become increasingly skilled and confident in communicating through spoken and written language. We provide opportunities for children to develop the physical strength and stamina they need to be able to write. Cursive handwriting is explicitly taught and practiced so that children develop speed, fluency and legibility.

Our text-led English units ensure that children have a context for their writing. All written tasks have a clear purpose and children develop skills in writing in a variety of forms, the range and complexity of these increases as they move through the school, so that by year 6 children are confident to write in a wide range of forms for different purposes. Children have opportunities to write for different audiences, real and imagined. Grammar is taught in context so that children can use the appropriate structures in relation to the form, audience and purpose of their writing. Children are taught how to edit and re-draft their writing and are given time to reflect on, evaluate and improve their writing in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.

We teach spelling in discrete sessions which aim to broaden children’s vocabulary and encourages them to be ‘word curious’ as well developing as their ability to spell accurately. Our spelling curriculum is based on the four strands of: phonemic knowledge, semantic knowledge, morphological and etymological knowledge.

Please see our English long term plans and English policy below.