English

English Vision

Our vision at Crayford Primary is to provide a quality English curriculum, which develops children’s love of reading; writing and discussion; and strongly enhances their life chances. We strive to foster a love of reading and writing in our students, as well as confidence and fluency in oracy skills; these skills enable our children to become independent learners, and to participate fully in all areas of the curriculum. The curriculum is organised in a way that provides purposeful opportunities for writing and discussion, while reading is embedded throughout. It allows the children opportunities to: 

• Develop a love of reading a wide variety of genres, across fiction, non-fiction and poetry; 
• Learn to read with fluency and confidence; 

• Acquire a wide vocabulary; 
• Gain a deeper understanding of our rich literary heritage; 
• Learn to write in a range of genres, adapting their language and style to a range of contexts, audiences and purposes; 
• Become confident in presenting their ideas on a range of topics, and be able to discuss these ideas articulately.

Lessons are carefully planned to give children a range of opportunities to practice these skills across the curriculum, with a clear path of progression in each of the areas. Through the development of strong reading, writing and oracy skills, our pupils’ access and engage in the full curriculum. 

Implementation 

We ensure that our English teaching supports a wide range of opportunities in the four key areas: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Teachers carefully select a range of texts to be read during each term, with these choices aimed at: inspiring and motivating our children; engaging every child in the classroom with the text; and allowing for a richer, deeper understanding of the English language. Our English approach includes: 

• Teachers creating a positive reading and writing culture across the school, fully embracing all aspects of the English curriculum; 
• A promotion of reading through daily, 45-minute Reading lessons; 

• Teachers reading to children regularly in the classroom; 
• All children across KS2 using the Accelerated Reader scheme, and these achievements being celebrated both in class and across the school; 
• Writing walls on display in every classroom, to celebrate every child’s writing, and their progress within this; 
• Opportunities for Oracy planned for across the curriculum, through presentations, debates and discussions; 
• Use of the VIPERS acronym to teach the core reading skills; 

• Spelling rules and patterns taught throughout the year to enable the children to become independent learners; 
• English Working Walls used to support the teaching of English in the classroom; 
• Ambitious vocabulary promoted through the use of word walls displayed in every classroom, and every class having a ‘Word of the Week’; 
• Models being used in every English lesson with a written outcome; 
• Word banks are used to support writing, and thesauri and dictionaries are available for children to use in each classroom; 

• A range of texts are taught throughout the academic year, giving the children the exposure to, and knowledge of, a variety of literary styles, authors and genres; 
• Reading a wide variety of texts across the whole curriculum, underlining the importance of reading in every area of life; 
• Engaging reading corners which promote a love of reading in the classroom; 
• Challenging, age-appropriate texts linked to each year group’s curriculum area. 

Take a look at our whole school Reading Canon for more information