English

Reading and Phonics

At The Horsell Village School, we aim to teach, enable and encourage children to become fluent, independent and analytical readers who are enthralled by books.

We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children develop secure foundations in phonics using a systematic synthetic phonics scheme, as well as fostering a culture of reading for pleasure and to acquire information through a wide variety of stories, poems, rhymes and non-fictions books.

We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening and use discussion and role play to communicate and further their learning and language development. Building solid foundations in all literacy skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need in their next steps of their education and to participate fully as a responsible member of society.

These aims are embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum. Our well organised English curriculum provides many purposeful opportunities for reading and the development of children’s vocabulary and language comprehension. Teachers adapt planning as appropriate to their class and make cross curricular links where appropriate. In Key Stage 1, our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum for English 2014 and Spoken Language which underpins the development of reading and writing. In Early Years, our curriculum meets the statutory framework.

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 language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. 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
• Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• Are competent in the arts of speaking and listening.

Writing 

• To continue to inspire writing through the use of high-quality texts illustrations and Art.
• To inspire writing through picture books “Power of Pictures” and ensure purpose for writing.
• To teach children specific vocabulary using modelling, shared writing opportunities and feedback, enabling them to make appropriate and creative word choices. (link to Word Aware)
• To utilize cross – curricular opportunities e.g. writing an evaluation of a DT project in the English session.
• To use fun word related activities es to increase children’s love and enjoyment of words and sentence structures.
• To use a range of genre to keep creativity of curriculum, using cross – curricular opportunities for writing where appropriate e.g. Geography / History learning through listening to and writing stories.

Parent Information

To support the teaching of phonics at The Horsell Village School we use Active Learn – Phonics Bug scheme. This and e-books can be accessed using the log in sent home with your child. 

Useful Links

These websites can be accessed at home to help your children with Reading, Writing and Spelling.

• https://www.letterjoin.co.uk/log-in.html
  Username:  jk9991
  Password: home
• https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

Please also visit our Reading and Phonics section of the website to view the parent’s information presentations