English

English Intent and Implementation

Intent

At Hillside, our English curriculum has been developed to recognise the importance of English in every aspect of daily life and to help children become confident communicators as well as developing a love of reading, writing and discussion. Our use of language structures and vocabulary development across school supports this. We aim to inspire an appreciation of a rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts.

Throughout school and across all subject areas, we develop writing skills so that our pupils have the stamina and ability to write at the age expected standard. To support children in moving towards independent writing we provide a wide range of activities and pre teaching of vocabulary (film, imagery, modelled, shared and guided writing, peer editing and discussion). We encourage pupils to express and exchange ideas and develop more sophisticated vocabulary orally, so they are ready to write. The writing process gives children time to talk, draft, edit, improve and publish their work; we want pupils to see themselves as authors.

We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in Literacy, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the curriculum. A secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully in their learning journey. We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop and so we encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school.

Implementation
We are building a rigorous and well organised English curriculum that provides many opportunities for reading, writing and discussion across the curriculum. We believe that reading and writing are the fundamentals of all learning so we ensure that cross curricular links with topic work are woven into every aspect of our programme of study, which follows the National Curriculum 2014. We use a wide variety of quality texts and resources to motivate and inspire our children.

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
● read easily, fluently and with good understanding
● develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
● acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
● appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
● write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
● use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain their understanding and ideas
● are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Impact
As a result, we have a community of enthusiastic readers who are excited to share the wonderful books they have been reading and enjoy emulating their favourite authors styles in their writing as well as showcasing what literacy knowledge and skills they have been learning. The impact and measure of this is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age-related knowledge gained as part of reading, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives.