English

'Our Curriculum Promise'

            “The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.” (2014 Primary Curriculum Framework Guidance)

 

Reading and Phonics

            Phonics is the basic reading instruction that teaches children the relationships between letters and sounds.  Our direct teaching of phonics begins in Nursery and teaches children to use these relationships to speak and write words.  Knowing these relationships through phonics helps young readers to recognise familiar words accurately and easily "decode" new words. The systematic, synthetic phonics programme we use is Read Write Inc Phonics. We are fully committed to this programme as we feel it gives your child the best possible start. 

            At Bishop Martin we aim to make all of our pupils ‘lifelong lovers of reading’.  We aim to ensure a balanced mix of approaches to reading so that our pupils achieve the skills required, a positive attitude, confidence as well as interest and a life-long love of literature.  Children are encouraged to develop inference, deduction and analyse the use of the author’s language to establish further understanding of texts.  Reading areas are established in all classrooms.  All children are heard read by a teacher at least weekly.

            We strongly encourage children to read regularly at home and provide a range of materials, including access to the online library

 

Writing

            Learning to write is one of the most important things that a child at primary school will learn. Children use their writing in almost all other subjects of the curriculum. Good writing also gives children a voice to share their ideas with the world. Martin Luther King wrote, “If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”

For a child, learning to write can be a tricky business, not least because good writing involves handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation not to mention what we want to write and who we are writing for.

            At Bishop Martin we teach these skills discretely when appropriate and then provide opportunities to develop and refine these skills through purposeful writing opportunities linked to our thematic learning units, in different contexts and subjects.

            We believe grammar is most effective when taught in the context of reading and writing and strive to teach grammar in meaningful contexts. Playing with words, investigations, jokes and rhymes can all enrich and inform grammatical knowledge and understanding whilst developing a genuine interest in how language works.