At Broke Hall School, we aim to provide an English Curriculum which inspires a love of communication and language. In addition, we aim for our children to leave primary school fully literate and articulate, and prepared for their secondary education and later life. This will be achieved through engaging lessons and unique learning opportunities based on real experiences, alongside the use of a range of high quality and enjoyable texts from a diverse group of authors and illustrators.

Intent

We want our pupils to understand that reading and writing are to be enjoyed, as well as being an invaluable tool to access information and to communicate with the world. Similarly, we want our pupils to feel confident in their ability to express themselves through their writing, allowing for their thoughts and opinions to be heard. Through studying texts from a wide variety of authors, we hope to inspire our children to continue to explore and develop their reading and writing when they leave our school.

The English skills that the children develop are utilised and supported in every area of the curriculum and can be directly linked with other subjects. For example, formal letter writing within English may be developed within a history topic and instructional writing could be linked to work completed in Science.

We provide challenge to children of all abilities and ensure they make good progress in all areas of the English National Curriculum. They are encouraged to have a growth mind-set and to develop the skills of perseverance and resilience. By studying texts from a diverse range of sources, pupils are given a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually.

We intend to help children develop skills and knowledge that will enable them to communicate creatively with the world at large, through spoken and written language. We also intend to help children to enjoy and appreciate literature and its rich variety.

We aim to:-

• Provide opportunities for children to peer and self-assess their own work enabling ownership over their work.
• Provide a rich and stimulating language environment, where speaking and listening, reading and writing are integrated.
• Provide opportunities for pupils to become confident, competent and expressive users of the language with a developed knowledge of how it works.
• Encourage children to express opinions, articulate feelings and formulate responses to a range of texts both fiction and non-fiction using appropriate technical vocabulary.
• Foster an interest in words and their meanings, and to promote the development of a growing vocabulary in both spoken and written form.
• Engage children with an understanding of a range of text types and genres.
• Foster an enthusiasm for, and love of, reading for life.
• Enable children to write in a variety of styles and forms showing awareness of audience and purpose.
• Develop the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness in all areas of English.
• Teach the children to use grammar and punctuation accurately.
• Develop the understanding of correct spelling conventions.
• Provide opportunities for pupils to communicate ideas by making use of digital technologies.
• Provide opportunities for role-play and drama.
• Encourage the production of effective, well presented written work using fluent and legible handwriting (see Handwriting Policy).

The progression documents for Reading and Writing outline the key knowledge and skills that children should develop at each stage of their journey through primary school.

Implementation

The National Curriculum Programme of Study for English provides the overall structure and content for teaching and learning at Broke Hall. Two documents - ‘Reading Skills Progression’ and ‘Writing Skills Progression’- ensure that the specific skills taught and explored within each year group builds on previous knowledge and develops challenge.

At Broke Hall School we employ a variety of teaching and learning styles. Our aim is to develop children’s knowledge, skills and understanding in English. We do this through daily English lessons that have a high proportion of whole-class and group teaching.

Curriculum planning for English is developed in three phases; long-term, medium-term and short-term). Our Long-Term Plan (the ‘Reading Skills Progression’ and ‘Writing Skills Progression’) identifies the key areas from the English programme of study that will be taught in each year group. Termly curriculum overviews for each year group (medium-term planning) add further detail, by providing a context for learning (often linked to the different areas of study in the foundation subjects for the term). These plans define the curriculum content and ensure an appropriate balance and distribution of work across each term.

Class Teachers develop weekly (short-term) plans/whiteboards for the teaching of English. These record the specific learning objectives and success criteria for each lesson. Activities in English are planned to build on the children's prior learning. While we give children of all abilities the opportunity to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding, planned progression ensures that there is an increasing challenge for the children as they move up through the school. Clear objectives are set for each session and success criteria are shared with the children. Teachers differentiate according to the needs of the children and intervention programmes are used to target and support identified children. Teachers are encouraged to provide support for children through scaffolding and inclusive quality first teaching.

Further information on how this is implemented can be found in the English Policy below: