English

Poetry

In our English curriculum we want to expose children to a range of texts and give them chances to explore poetry in an accessible way. We have introduced poems for children to learn throughout their time at the infant school - these will be shared with classes with regular chances to practise and even a chance to perform as a class during an assembly each half term. Reception children will learn one poem a term that they will aim to be able to recite by heart. Key Stage 1 children will have a poem each half term. We encourage families to share these at home and even find other poems that they enjoy and can send into school to share with the teachers. Poems can be a fun way to explore new vocabulary together and share opinions about which ones you enjoy most!

Reading

Phonics and Spelling

We use the Essential Letters and Sounds programme throughout the school in our Phonics teaching.  Our youngest learners in Owlets and Owls are taught to recognise environmental sounds and to discriminate between different sounds.  This is further developed in Puffins and Robins, where children are taught to recognise the sounds that letters make (phonemes) and to write these sounds (graphemes).  Children are then taught to blend sounds together to read words. By the time children get to Year One, they have a good grasp of blending sounds for reading, segmenting sounds for spelling and they are ready to learn about alternative spellings for the same sound.  In Kingfishers and Jays (Year 2), children can spell many words independently and their phonics teaching has more of a focus on spelling patterns and grammar. In Year 2 children also have daily spelling lessons which focus on aspects such as homophones and suffixes.  Parents and carers are encouraged to help children practise their spellings at home.

Handwriting

Writing

We celebrate children’s writing throughout the school on display boards, and our children take great pride in their written work. In EYFS children learn to make marks and form letters on a large scale, using anything from paintbrushes, to chunky chalk, to mud on a stick!  We want our children to be confident in picking up any implement and writing with it.  This soon progresses into writing letters and words, and small pieces of writing like their names, or labelling a picture.  In Puffins and Robins, children are taught to write in sentences so they are ready for year one.  In Key Stage One, writing is taught through an exciting text, as part of the topic the classes are learning about.  Inspiration for writing is taken from drama, retelling stories, ideas from books and from adults modelling good quality writing.  There are lots of opportunities for children to write whole stories, poems, newspaper articles and lots of other things! We also have lessons in which we focus on specific skills, which children can use to improve thier writing.  We celebrate our work in Friday assemblies, when each class has a turn at presenting something they are proud of.