Statement of Intent
A key aim for our pupils is effective communication of ideas and emotions through in reading, writing, speaking and listening. Through reading, pupils develop culturally, emotionally, socially and spiritually by reading across the curriculum. We aim to increase pupils’ fluency and confidence with reading, but also their enjoyment by exposing them to a rich diet of texts including our literary heritage.
The spoken word is paramount in forming foundations for writing and promoting reading and writing, including children’s understanding of how to shape and refine their work and employ spelling conventions and Standard English. Pupils are encouraged to participate in discussion and debate, asking and answering questions readily. We aim to provide all pupils with opportunities to develop skills and knowledge associated with drama.
Aims
The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of
language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and
written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for
enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
- read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic
conventions for reading, writing and spoken language - appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a
range of contexts, purposes and audiences - use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly
their understanding and ideas - are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations,
demonstrating to others and participating in debate
Have a look at the 'What are we learning?' section on each year group's page to see what they are covering in English.
Reading
Here at Parkside our motto is "Dream, believe... achieve" and we aim to provide the environment and support for each and every child to do just that. We aim to inspire our children to have a positive attitude towards reading, encouraging them to have an interest in books and help the children to read for pleasure. Reading can benefit children in so many ways and a child who reads daily will develop excellent writing skills. As parents, you are your child’s most influential teacher, with an important part to play in helping your child to learn to read. Children need to be reading for at least 15-20 minutes every night to enable them to develop their reading skills further.
“Time spent reading books is one of the best ways to help children to realise positive academic achievement”
“Being a competent, proficient reader will help a child achieve success in other areas of the curriculum”
How you can help at home
1. Find a quiet space and a quiet time. Try to encourage your child to read to you for 15 minutes each night.
2. Have a look at the front cover together. Ask your child to tell you what they think the story is about by looking at clues on the front page. Encourage them to predict what they think might happen. These types of questions will really help to develop their comprehension skills.
3. Read together. Don’t worry if your child gets a word wrong. Encourage them to carry on and read till the end of the sentence. Your child may go back and self-correct a word they have mispronounced, however if your child is really stuck on a word, encourage them to use their phonic skills to sound out each letter in the word and blend them together.
Children are taught the phonemes (sounds) and the graphemes (letters and letter groups that make up the sounds) used to spell them. They are also encouraged to blend the phonemes throughout a word in order to decode (read) it rather than simply sounding out individual letters.
E.g. “fright” should be sounded out as:
F r - igh – t
Rather than the i, g and h being individual letters.
Shop- sh – o – p
Space – sp – a-e – c (here the ‘e’ is what we would have called ‘magic e’)
We also focus on the teaching of high frequency words (words used a lot) which do not follow the normal grapheme/phoneme rules. These words are included in the back of your child’s reading diary.
4. If your child is struggling to use their phonics to decode a word, ask them to look for clues in the pictures or the text. Try reading the whole sentence and miss out the difficult word. Also discuss what is happening in the text at that point and what word would make sense. If your child can still not read the word, then say ‘Let’s read this word together’ and point to the words as you read them.
5. Remember reading is about developing a love of books and encouraging our children to be confident readers. It is essential children develop confidence when reading and are able to answer questions about what they have read, as opposed to just being able to read the written word.
6. Encourage your child to read a range of texts, such as information books, picture books, poems and stories.
Talk For Writing
- Children are taught through the ‘Pie Corbett’- Imitate, Innovate Independent application sequence.
- Each child will imitate an age appropriate fiction and non-fiction text each half term.
- All English lessons begin with either a reading, spelling, punctuation or grammar exercise.
- Imitated texts and story maps are recorded into children’s English books.
- All children are given the opportunity to edit and improve their work based on the marking and feedback.
- Classrooms have ‘Vocabulary we have magpied’ displays which supports their vocabulary and is regularly used in lessons.
- The working wall or washing line is used to support children’s writing in each classroom.
- Writers tool kits are to record the language and layout of non-fiction texts plus tool kits for the different fiction genres.
Handwriting
At Parkside Primary we are very proud of our pupils' handwriting and take particular care in our cursive/joined-up handwriting style. We use Letter-join as the basis of our handwriting as it covers all the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum. Handwriting is a basic skill that influences the quality of work throughout the curriculum. At the end of Key Stage 2 all pupils should have the ability to produce fluent, legible and, eventually, speedy joined-up handwriting, and to understand the different forms of handwriting used for different purposes.
For more details please visit https://www.letterjoin.co.uk/
Please click here to see the correct formations for upper case and lower case letters.
Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling (GPS)
Here are some useful websites to support grammar, punctuation and spelling.
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/topics/zhrrd2p
https://www.educationquizzes.com/ks2/english/
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/7-11-years/punctuation
Click here for a glossary which explains the terminology used throughout school.
Spelling
We have made changes to how spellings are to be taught and tested at Parkside. All children from Year 2 to Year 6 will be completing Read Write Inc. Spelling. Children will be introduced to a new spelling rule on the Tuesday of each week. They will then bring their spellings home to practise and have daily activities working on the rule within school. Children will have seven rule words and an additional three common exception words to learn which are words the children need to be able to spell for their year group. All children will then have a spelling test on the following Monday.
We would really appreciate any help given to your children in learning their spellings at home. Common exception words for each year group can be found below. If you have any questions regarding spelling, please speak to your child's class teacher.
Sentence Openers
Lots of useful ideas for your writing in KS2.
Frost Gremlin text maps
Year 5 pupils have been working in groups to create text maps and orally rehearse a non-chronological report.
