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Intent

The English curriculum at Winterbourne Nursery and Infants School promotes high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language. We also aim to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.

Children will be encouraged

  • To develop their writing through the use of a quality key text.
  • To re-read and discuss stories they enjoy or that are important to them.
  • Use drama, hot seating and role play to enhance their oral skills and develop their language and vocabulary.
  • Take part in daily phonics lessons to develop their blending and segmenting.
  • Take part in taught handwriting lessons.
  • Read easily, fluently and with good understanding.
  • Develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
  • To appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage.
  • Use discussion to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas.

We want our English lessons to support all children. Key skills are sequenced to gradually build up on children’s prior knowledge so that all pupils can get an early sense of success. The most fundamental concepts are broken down into smaller chunks for SEND children.

Implementation​

The English curriculum at Winterbourne Nursery and Infants School is taught through structured English lessons, phonics, reading and handwriting. We also embed English throughout the day through the use of story time, talk partners and class discussions.

In EYFS, English is taught across the seven areas of learning of the EYFS framework to achieve Early Learning Goals at the end of the Foundation Stage. The most relevant Early Learning Goals for English are found in the Communication and Language and Literacy areas. The children learn to listen and respond to one another through class and paired discussions, express their own ideas whist being encouraged to talk in the correct tense, listen to and discuss a range of stories and learn the sound for each letter of the alphabet and blend those sounds to read.

In KS1, the children start to take part in formal learning. They begin to use a core text to understand different genres and learn the skills that enables them to write in that genre, become fluent readers as they learn alternative graphemes for phonemes, develop their speech as they learn ambiguous vocabulary, the effects of different punctuation and the rules of prefixes, suffixes, homophones and near homophones.

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Impact

As children progress throughout the school, they develop a deep knowledge, an appreciation of English literature and the English language.

Children’s achievement in English is assessed through:

  • ​Formative assessment during phonics and English lessons.
  • Half termly summative phonics, reading and writing assessments.
  • Book scrutiny.
  • Learning walks and professional dialogue with teachers.
  • Talking to pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
  • Discussion with teachers over half termly pupil progress meetings
  • Teacher discussions with the English Lead.
As a result of this the children make good – accelerated progress from their starting points, develop a love of reading, can articulate themselves well and write using the correct grammar.