We believe in guiding children towards a life-long love of the written word in all its forms.

Central to our approach of teaching all areas of English is providing the children with opportunities to develop their oracy skills. We acknowledge the importance of working collaboratively in groups of varying sizes (pairs, small groups, whole class) to discuss and present ideas for learning. We encourage the children to develop their competence in spoken language and their listening skills to enhance the effectiveness of their communication across a range of contexts and to a range of audiences. We develop their understanding of turn taking through modelling the key skills needed to know when and how to participate in progressively mature and complex conversations and debates.

We endeavour to share with the children an appreciation of the cultural significance of books as well as the importance of reading as a means of empowering individuals in society. Consequently, we believe that all children should have a wide range of literary experiences across a variety of contexts to help them become competent, proficient and sophisticated readers.  To support this, we use core texts suggested by Literacy Leaf and promote a range of approaches to the teaching and learning of English. We choose texts that support other areas of the curriculum as well as representing aspects of the children’s lives and cultures.

We believe that phonological awareness is an essential part of learning to read.  We encourage children to apply their phonic knowledge, along with other strategies when tackling texts.  Phonics, however, is not just another strategy but a body of knowledge that children need to acquire.  Children experience a discrete daily phonics lesson based on the letters and sounds programme, from nursery to year 2 and in to KS2, where necessary.

We also recognise the importance of children learning the skill of writing. We acknowledge its significance as a means of communicating and recording ideas, opinions and knowledge but we also encourage the children to value its role in supporting their thinking and learning. We strive to give them ownership of this tool so that they can use it to shape, organise, and refine their thought processes in a variety of learning contexts. We also hope to provide opportunities for children to express themselves through writing in a way that may be deeply personal but will allow them to explore their feelings and emotions