English statement of intent

English

Sheringdale’s aim is to ensure all children leave primary school as enthusiastic, confident and fluent speakers, readers and writers of the English language. Sheringdale goes beyond the National Curriculum to provide engaging and high-quality lessons for pupils using a combination of Power of Reading and Talk for Writing approaches. This provides breadth, depth and authenticity to the curriculum’s English objectives.

Phonics

Children at Sheringdale are taught to read using the synthetic phonics scheme Jolly Phonics. This is the approach that children in Reception are taught all 42 sounds at a pace of 4-5 sounds per week. This progresses through the rest of KS1 to complete their Phonics understanding. At all times, we look at the needs of individual children and ensure the curriculum coverage is meeting their needs, Intervention and additional phonics teaching is put in place to help and support children and sometimes stages are retaught and practiced more to help the children retain the sound in their long-term memory.

Reading

Sheringdale’s approach to reading is that all children have the skills and ability to tackle a range of genres, unfamiliar vocabulary and different subject matters. The children are exposed to a variety of high-quality texts including poetry and non-fiction, supporting learning across all curriculum subjects.  A love of reading is nurtured with welcoming book corners in every class and children are encouraged to become enthusiastic, independent and fluent readers.  Children are encouraged to discuss the books they love, sensitively challenge the opinions of others and unpick and recognise the different messages conveyed in narrative text.

Reading underpins the school day in a variety of ways.  Reading is embedded into all areas of our curriculum and classes are read to daily by their teacher, with opportunities for other adults to share books they love with each class.  They are also given opportunities to enjoy the book corners and read a variety of books independently as well as regular visits to the local library and librarian assemblies in school.  From Early Years through to Year 6, teachers prioritise reading comprehension skills through small group work to ensure talk for learning, discussion and reflection opportunities are used effectively.  Progression across the year groups is both in terms of difficulty of word decoding in a text and the complexity of character and plot.  Importantly, small group discussion enables those with SEND or EAL to access more challenging texts and fulfil their potential as learners. 

Writing

In order to support the development of writing, we have created a book -centred approach which ensures that the children are exposed to a variety of high-quality texts, genres and a range of vocabulary. We use a combination of Power of Reading and Talk for Writing teaching approaches to explore topics and genres. We follow a three-stage writing cycle which involves the imitation of a model text, an innovation stage with many shared writing opportunities before ending with the independent application stage. We allow children to explore a particular book while providing many opportunities for speaking and listening before writing. During the writing stage, children are encouraged to plan, develop and make editions and revisions to their writing, taking pride in the creative process. Sheringdale strives for all children to leave primary school as confident and articulate learners, with a deep knowledge and understanding of audience and purpose in their writing across many genres.