Speaking & Listening
We aim to encourage children to express themselves and to communicate fluently and articulately, with clarity and purpose, in an interesting and varied manner. Similarly, they are encouraged to listen and to appreciate other speakers with all their variations of tone, vocabulary, dialect and content.
Activities will build upon the oral language and experiences, which pupils bring from home. We aim to give the children the skills to read for both pleasure and information and to give them study skills in the use of reference books. Teaching will cover a range of stimulating literature, both fiction and non-fiction, and should ensure that pupils regularly hear and share stories and poetry. In lessons, you may see a range of activities to develop oracy and speaking and listening skills such as:
- Storytelling and role-play – Using drama and role-play activities to enhance expressive communication.
- Debates and presentations – Giving children opportunities to present their ideas and opinions formally.
- Listening tasks – Engaging children in active listening exercises, such as responding to stories or instructions.
- Paired and group work – Encouraging teamwork and collaborative discussion.
Reading
Success in reading is achieved through partnership between home and school. Therefore, we encourage children to take an independent reading book, a library book and an individual school planner/reading record or reading journal. Positive parental comments in this booklet will be much appreciated and questions to challenge your child’s reading can be found within the planner/reading record. We ask that parents accept the responsibility for the care and return of all books. Book bags are available for purchase from the school office. If you child is in KS2, they will be offered a reading journal, which allows them to express their own feelings and thoughts around a book, demonstrating their true engagement with reading and encouraging strategic reading thinking and reflection.
We offer a huge variety of books for your children to read, including those from high quality reading schemes and a variety of ‘real books’ that can be found in the school libraries. If your child is still on our phonics scheme, RWI, they will received a Book Bag book which is aligned to their current grouping and enables your child to practise their sound knowledge and develop fluency. If your child has progress beyond phonics, our book banded books are available for your child to read a text at the appropriate level. In EYFS-KS1, we offer a weekly ‘Book Time’ session every Thursday from 8:50-9:10am and we warmly invite you to spend these sessions reading with your child.
Read Write Inc. Phonics is taught daily in EYFS and KS1 and for those who require in KS2. The children are taught in differentiated groups, to allow us to meet their needs successfully. For those not on RWI anymore, they will participate in lesson, 3-4 times a week, using the Reciprocal Reading model, which encourages exploration of a whole extended book and encourages the children to engage strategically through their development of skills such as questioning, clarifying, summarising, predicting. Informer sessions are also utilised to help the children connect their background knowledge to the text.
Our approach to reading develops both the skills and the will of a reader through the careful planning of teaching word reading, comprehension and of developing a love for reading.
Writing
We understand the essential need for secure foundational knowledge among children when developing in writing. Our approach to writing is carefully planned to better equip children with the essential skills and knowledge needed for their educational success as a writer. Through dedicated handwriting lessons, using Kinetic Letters and dedicated spelling lessons, we aim for children to have the transcription skills needed in order to compose effective and successful pieces of writing.
Our English teaching is based on the National Curriculum and grammar skills are taught regularly within our English lessons. We teach different genres of fiction writing with a focus on plot weaving and fictional toolkits such as character description, settings and suspense. We also teach a range of poetry and a variety of non-fiction text types through the Storytelling approach. Spelling occurs as part of our RWI phonics programme and is also taught 2-3 times a week from Year 2 upwards, using Spelling Shed as the main approach.
At Redwell Primary School, the children enjoy English and have embraced the Storytelling techniques, not just in English lessons but across the wider curriculum too. Our texts are at the heart of our curriculum and feed into all other subjects through the deepening stages. With reading and storytelling comes a wealth of vocabulary, by the time a child has completed their learning journey with us, they will have a readymade word bank at their disposal. They will also have been exposed to over forty different stories, ranging from quest stories, to stories from different cultures. We believe that by following the Storytelling School approach, we are not only developing literacy skills but also allowing children’s confidence to flourish. We endeavour to have interesting, dynamic learning experiences to suit all learning styles on offer to excite and enthuse our children about English.
How are the British Values developed in English at Redwell?
At Redwell, we promote the fundamental British Values through our English Curriculum:
- Democracy
- Rule of Law
- Individual Liberty
- Mutual respect
On our carefully planned out literature spine, you will see a range of texts which are high-quality, diverse and expose out children to significant literature authors, including those deemed important in British literature.
Democracy:
Ambassadors for both reading and writing are chosen through a voting system and, across the year, this group of children will offer the voice of the child in key decisions within English, such as designing what activities will take place on World Book Day, choosing new books for the library and running school wide competitions. Our Redwell Reporter gives our children a voice in school and world events and, through their journalistic skills, they choose how they wish to share key news and events with those in our community.
Mutual respect:
Our texts expose children a range of theme and, through our carefully thought out EDI texts, we ensure our children are exposed to a range of characters from different cultures, families and divergence, allowing conversations around these characters to teach children mutual respect, whilst also linking to our own school values.
Our school library and book band selection have a comprehensive selection of literature to ensure that every child can see themselves in a book, following the research around ‘Windows and Mirrors’. Texts are carefully selected so pupils are able to connect to their own life experiences to consider individual liberty and the extent to which they use their freedoms. Our non-fiction selection includes series such as ‘Little People Big Ideas’ in order to open conversation around ins irrational figures.
Individual Liberty:
In order to develop individual liberty, children get experience to choose their own direction of writing during our ‘Purple Writes’. These are writes specifically designed to allow children to ‘free write’ in response to a chosen stimulus to an audience of their choice, using a genre of their choice too.
Our library purposefully is designed to allow the children to choose books which they want to enjoy for pleasure. It is organised in the way books can make us feel, as well as key topics and authors, meaning children can choose what interests them each week to read about.
Encourage Critical Thinking Through Discussion and Debate:
Safe and respectful classrooms allow considered class discussions were asking questions, clarifying understanding and sharing different perspectives and viewpoints is encouraged and valued. Through key oracy strategies such as learning partners, talking hands and sentence STEMS, our learners are guided in their discussions, helping them to achieve oracy skills to share, argue and question. Debates are also utilised in some lessons.
By embedding these values in the English curriculum, students not only develop their literacy skills but also grow into responsible, respectful citizens. Collaboration with other subjects, assemblies, and school-wide initiatives can reinforce these principles further.
Library Newsletters
Progression Maps