Our aim at Backworth Park Primary school is to deliver an exciting, engaging and creative English curriculum which supports and encourages children to learn to read and write with confidence. Our curriculum also aims to support and develop the children’s oracy skills.

Reading is the most important skill, as it helps the children to access the world. Therefore, we want the children to have a passion for reading and enjoy reading for pleasure. The aim is to ensure that children not only learn how to read but also develop a love for books and the immersive, imaginary worlds they can offer.

Through this love of reading we aim to encourage the children to write accurately, imaginatively and to adapt their language and style to suite a range of writing contexts.

Implementation

Writing

At Backworth Park Primary School we strive to ensure our children start with a firm foundation in literacy skills, beginning in the Early Years. The children then build upon this foundation as they move through school. We recognise that literacy skills are a key component for all learning. We follow the Early Years Statutory Guidance and the National Curriculum 2014 when planning our learning opportunities.

Our English curriculum has been designed with rich, engaging and relevant texts being at the heart of it. The children are exposed to a wide range of texts from different genres and contexts. The texts cover a wide range of topics and are closely linked to the children’s learning across the wider curriculum. The curriculum has been planned in this way to enable the children to feel immersed in their learning and feel as though they can draw on and use their knowledge from subject to subject effectively.

The curriculum is taught in a range of styles to promote quality learning and to motivate the children to achieve success.

For example:

• Direction
• Demonstration
• Modelling
• Scaffolding
• Explanation
• Targeted questioning
•  Initiating and guiding exploration
•  Discussing and challenging ideas generated by the children
•  Listening and responding to children in a sensitive and supporting manner, discussing and evaluating children’s successes

The children access the English curriculum daily.

Reading

Our reading provision aims to equip pupils with the skills and knowledge necessary to read fluently and confidently while developing a love for reading.

Teachers at Backworth Park Primary understand the importance of championing themselves as readers and model this to the children. Teachers select texts from the Backworth Park Reading Spine to share with the children during daily teacher led reading sessions and within whole class reading sessions in KS2. Reading for pleasure is developed further through:

• Regular reading aloud time and sharing of books.
• A wide range of literature being promoted by teachers.
• High quality reading displays and reading areas.
• Regular opportunities for pupils to read self – chosen books silently.
• Whole School Book Days/weeks and celebration of national book events
• Home challenges linked to reading.
• Weekly ‘Book Club’ where children get to share about what they are reading and make recommendations.
• Reading leaders promote a love of reading and select a range of books for their classrooms.

These approaches allow children to listen to a story being read to them often, which supports their enjoyment of reading and also provides opportunities for children to enjoy sharing stories with others. These strategies also help expose the children to a wide range of vocabulary through a range of text genres.