English

Subject Lead: Mrs Price

 

 

Fun facts about Mrs Price :

• Mrs Price loves animals and has a dog called Buddy and a tortoise called Beaker - both come into school on occasions to see the children.
• Mrs Price enjoys storytime more than any other time in school. 
• Mrs Price loves gardening and is getting better at keeping plants alive each year.

Phonics Lead:  Mrs Windsor

 

Fun facts about Mrs Windsor: 

• Mrs Windsor likes going to the theatre.
• Mrs Windsor likes cooking and baking.
• Mrs Windsor loves teaching children to read and hearing them read stories to her. It makes her day!

English Intent at Cooper and Jordan 

At Cooper and Jordan we strive to develop our children into articulate and imaginative communicators who are well-equipped with the basic skills they need to become life-long learners; English learning plays a vital role in this. We aim to ensure that all of our children develop a genuine love of language and literature  and our text-based approach carefully links our reading and writing curriculum together through a diverse range of high-quality books. 

  

Our curriculum ensures that children’s learning is relevant and meaningful and we strive to ensure that children develop an understanding of how widely writing is used in everyday life and, therefore, how important and useful the skills are that they are learning. 

 

At Cooper and Jordan we intend:

• For children to become enthusiastic and motivated readers. 
• For all children to read fluently and with understanding.
• For children to become confident spellers.
• To encourage a love of literature and for children to see themselves as real writers.
• For children to take ownership of their writing and to write for a variety of purposes.
• For children to acquire the ability to organise, plan and edit their written work. 

 

English Implementation at Cooper and Jordan

 

Reading - Phonics and Comprehension 

 

At Cooper and Jordan, we aim that every child leaves our school with the ability to read fluently. We understand just how important reading is as a building block to educational success and personal growth: learning to read is one of the most important skills we teach our children. 

As soon as they start school, we aim to immerse children in the wonderful opportunities books offer and instil a love of reading that lasts a lifetime. Reading is at the heart of everything we do and our enriching curriculum supports children to access a wealth of texts. 

 

Children having access to reading for pleasure is a key part of our positive reading culture and all classrooms have a library with Key Stage 2 having a dedicated Library full of fiction and non-fiction books that children can choose to read. These books are updated regularly to ensure a current and diverse selection and our Y6 librarians enjoy spending their budget on a selection of ‘child choice’ books. Year 1 and Year 4 also have fortnightly visits to Aldridge Library to continue to embed this love of reading. 

To further enhance our dedication to ensure that all children develop a positive reading attitude, Mrs Price is currently working with the PTA to  create a reading hub that both KS1 and KS2 can access at playtimes - watch this space for updates! 

 

Phonics

 

Throughout the Early Years and Key Stage 1, children engage in daily phonic sessions. Following the programme ‘RWI’, children learn the correspondences between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). They learn how to blend different letter sounds and combinations together to decode words and how to listen for the sounds in words to segment to develop spelling and writing. The RWI programme ensures that children practice and consolidate their skills, as well as moving at a fast pace with new learning to motivate and engage children. This allows children to quickly become confident and independent readers, allowing them to put their energy into comprehending what they read as they move through school.  

 

Comprehension

 

Through our positive reading culture at Cooper and Jordan, children are provided with the opportunity to develop their own personal love of reading through access to a high quality range of fiction and non-fiction books. Whole class storytimes form an integral part of the day and is a time for children to listen to and engage with books and poetry from a diverse range of authors, modelled with excellence by staff. 

 

At Cooper and Jordan we know that great writing comes from great reading and, as children progress into Key Stage 2,  our reading lessons are taught using a whole-class approach. We ensure that all children have access, with an appropriate level of support, to rich, challenging and diverse texts. Vocabulary is taught explicitly to ensure that texts are accessible and children can delve deeper with their levels of inference. Throughout these lessons, key comprehension skills are covered by reference to the mnemonic VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, Sequence/Summarise) and these are referred to throughout reading lessons.    

 

Writing 

 

At Cooper and Jordan, we strive for excellence in our writing. English lessons are centred around high-quality texts which are purposefully chosen to engage our children and are used as a stimulus to motivate and inspire. 

In Early Years and Key Stage 1, our phonics curriculum enables the children to enjoy learning to write. They are encouraged to verbalise sentences at the planning stage and then use their knowledge of graphemes and tricky words to support them as they write. These phonic skills are not just utilised for our youngest writers but are encouraged and used throughout lessons across the school to support all learners. 

Sequences of lessons are planned to teach our children how to plan, edit, revise and evaluate their writing in English lessons with these writing skills then independently applied across the curriculum. 

 

Spelling

 

At Cooper and Jordan, we teach children spelling through using a range of techniques to understand the morphological and orthographic patterns of words. 

In Early Years and Year 1 the children’s spellings are directly linked to the sounds they are learning in their phonic sessions. They also give the children opportunity to practise ‘tricky words’ and improve their topic based vocabulary. 

From Year 2, the children follow the Spelling Shed Scheme. This scheme closely looks at the link between morphology and the orthography of words providing carefully chosen word lists which continue to incorporate phonics and meaning to strengthen spelling and build vocabulary acquisition. 

 

Grammar and Punctuation 

 

To enable our children to be brave with their choices of grammar and punctuation and have an interest in how it works, we teach discrete grammar and punctuation sessions. This gives the children opportunities to identify, practise and consolidate their grammatical understanding before applying these skills in their writing. 

 

Handwriting 

 

We aim for all children to develop a fluent and legible style of handwriting by the time they leave us at KS2. At Cooper and Jordan Handwriting is taught weekly while also utilising opportunities in English lessons. Our aim for handwriting is that the fluent and personal style that children use becomes automatic therefore enabling our children to focus on the content of their work. 

 

Speaking and Listening 

 

At Cooper and Jordan, we take great pride in our children being confident and competent speakers who can share their ideas with both their peers and the wider community. Our English curriculum engages children in a wide range of activities focused on developing these skills:

Throughout their time with us, children may take part in:

• Poetry recitals.
• Joke competitions.
• School Plays.
• Quizzes against other schools.
• Leading class assemblies
• Presenting to their peers in class.
• Reading in church and leading collective worship.   

 

Throughout the school day, high-quality speaking and listening is modelled by all members of staff. Children are continually encouraged to verbalise their thinking across the curriculum and share their ideas with a peer before sharing with the class. 

 

English Impact at Cooper and Jordan  

 

By the time children leave us at Cooper and Jordan, they will:

• Make good or better academic progress from their starting points as a result of a rich and engaging curriculum. 
• Have a love for writing and write for enjoyment.
• Be confident to write for a range of purposes. 
• Be enthusiastic and motivated readers who are confident and will enjoy reading a wide variety of genres and text types. 
• Be inspired by literature and read for pleasure.  

We hope that as children move on from us to their further education, their creativity, passion for education and high aspirations travel with them and continue to grow and develop as they do.   

 

Pupil Voice

 

Miller said "I like learning new words that I can then use in my writing."

Amelia said "My favourite thing is writing about lots  different things and using different style."

Phoebe said "I like that you use your imagination and can write great stories with help from our teachers."

Caitlin said "The best thing about English is that I can write in different styles and use new vocabulary that I have learned from my reading books."

Isla said "I like that in Year 5 I get to write long stories especially when we got to create our own Robin Hood story, it was really interesting to do."

Jessie said "I love when we are given a prompt like a picture or a film clip and can write using it, it really makes me think."