English
At Sherburn Hungate, we strongly believe that every child matters – from the most able to those who find learning a challenge, whatever their educational needs may be. We aim to give all of our children the best possible opportunities to develop their English skills, in order that they can achieve the highest possible standards of which they are capable. We aim to provide a rich language environment, which not only stimulates and supports each child’s language development, but also reflects the rich and diverse society that we live in.
We offer a broad and balanced range of experiences for every child, catering for visual, aural and kinaesthetic learners.
Reading
We aim for all pupils to become independent, confident and fluent readers, both aloud and silently for increasingly sustained periods of time. A range of different approaches is adopted, including the whole class study of texts, group and paired reading activities, reading circles, as well as many opportunities for reading for pleasure for example, through regular visits to our local library.
We aim for children to be able to:
- Read a wide range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, developing their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.
- Read with a ‘writerly’ eye.
- Be able to choose their own reading materials both for information and for pleasure, and evaluate and justify their preferences.
- Use their reading skills across the curriculum.
- Be able to orchestrate a full range of reading cues (phonic, graphic, syntactic, contextual) to monitor their reading and correct their own mistakes.
- Be taught to navigate texts e.g. skimming, scanning, information retrieval, visualising and predicting.
- Be taught comprehension strategies e.g. speculating, deducing, inferring, interpreting, making connectives and authorial intent.
• Develop responses e.g. likes, dislikes, puzzles, questioning, re-evaluating, connecting with own experience, empathising, referring to text to support views, considering overall impact.
Phonics
At Sherburn Hungate Primary School, we use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme to teach phonics. Phonics is taught daily in a clear, systematic way, helping children learn the sounds that letters and groups of letters represent and how to blend these sounds together to read words. Children take part in daily phonics lessons, with regular opportunities to practise and revisit their learning. They also bring home a carefully matched Little Wandle reading book, allowing them to practise the sounds and words they have been learning in school. This consistent approach helps children develop confidence, fluency and a love of reading.
Writing
Through our teaching, children will be made aware that print carries meaning, and understand the purposes of writing. To promote emergent writing, children will be encouraged to ‘write’ independently and be asked to ‘read’ their writing to others. This will always be valued. To support the emergent writer, shared/guided reading and writing sessions will be used to feed in the conventions of writing.
Teachers at all stages will present and/or read good quality examples of different forms of writing in shared reading and writing sessions. Children will be encouraged to redraft and edit their writing and will support others to do the same.
Our aims are that children will:
- Enjoy writing, and see it as interesting, useful and challenging.
- Be aware of the key features of fiction and non-fiction texts.
- Know, understand and be able to write in a range of genres, both fiction and non-fiction.
- Be able to write for different purposes and audiences, considering the composition and effect appropriate to the text being produced.
- Have a solid understanding of the writing process, becoming reflective writers by planning, evaluating and redrafting their work.
Handwriting
We set high expectations for children’s handwriting and presentation skills.
Our aims are for children to:
- Develop a logical, fluent and consistent style of writing.
- Achieve high standards of presentation throughout all areas of the curriculum.
• Be encouraged to evaluate their handwriting and presentation.
Speaking & Listening
Talk is an underlying key factor in the development of Literacy (as well as a central feature of any successful teaching and learning activity). Given the significance of speaking and listening for children’s learning and overall language development, we ensure that there is adequate curriculum time for it to be explicitly taught and to identify places in the timetable where children can revisit, apply and extend the speaking and listening skills which they have been explicitly taught.
We ensure that there are planned opportunities for pupils to speak in different contexts, listen and respond to others, engage in group activities and discussion, and take participate in drama sessions.
