English

At Althorpe and Keadby, we believe a high quality education in English will teach children to speak, read and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Fluency in the English language is an essential foundation for success in all subjects and our teachers develop children’s spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary as integral aspects of the teaching of every subject.

The cultural capital obtained through becoming an articulate user of a wide and rich range of vocabulary is one of the key drivers underpinning our wider curriculum. Interwoven through all areas of the curriculum is a determination to support our children in developing confidence and fluency in using a wide range of vocabulary in a variety of contexts. This will expand the vocabulary choices that are available to children, enabling them to express themselves clearly and communicate effectively with others. With this in mind Althorpe and Keadby has really reconsidered it's approach to English teaching and learning over the past two years. We have implemented a new phonics strategy, a new reading and spelling curriculum and we are currently re-writing our writing curriculum. 

We believe that all children should have the opportunity to be fluent, confident readers who are able to successfully comprehend and understand a wide range of texts. Through the teaching of reading, it is our intention to immerse our children in the wonders of quality texts to instil a love of reading, a passion for discovery and a confidence to use their imagination through exposure to and experience of high quality, engaging children’s books. Using carefully chosen texts, we can help children understand the experiences of others in the wider world; reading transports the reader beyond what is possible in daily life and is an essential part in helping children to understand their world.

At Althorpe and Keadby we understand that writing is an essential skill. By the end of Year Six we intend our children to have developed a love of writing and to be able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively through the written word. We also intend to create writers who can re-read, edit and improve their own writing, and enable pupils to be able to confidently use the essential skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling. 

In order to achieve a good level of writing by year 6, we start in EYFS where children are exposed to a great variety of age appropriate texts and discuss them, orally rehearsing (where appropriate) the story, so by Year 1, children have an understanding of multiple nursery rhymes and have a memory bank to then apply their structure to some of their writing.

Multiple opportunities are given throughout the day to write, not only within English lessons. So children develop an understanding of writing for purpose and for different audiences. Writing in English lessons is planned on the long term plan and the use of progression maps ensure that a variety of genres are progressively taught and built upon both throughout the year and throughout the school, therefore dedicating writing lessons to creating high-quality writing, modelled by the class teacher, so that high level vocabulary and age-appropriate grammar is seen and used by the children in their own writing. 

As a Voice 21 school beginning on our oracy  journey, it is our intention to further embed the structure and use of thought-provoking questioning, speaking and listening skills to support all children and to enable greater depth children to flourish.

We believe that speaking, reading and writing are inextricably linked and by using high quality texts to read and talk though, high quality writing will follow. Children are exposed to high level vocabulary, sentence structure, develop a greater understanding of authorial intent, tone and a variety of genres which can then be utilised in their own writing.