Intent Statement for English at The Abbey Primary School, Shaftesbury.
Subject Leaders: Charlie Dymock and Maxine Sanderson
At “The Abbey’ we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion by following the aims of the National Curriculum for English (2014)
When our children leave ‘The Abbey’ we expect them to be avid readers, children who read fluently and widely and are able to express preferences and opinions about the texts that they read, having developed their all-important comprehension skills. We want them to read for pleasure, having had access to a wide range of text types, genres and authors in order for them to make informed opinions about their favourites, whilst appreciating our rich and varied literary heritage.
We want to produce children who write with confidence and accuracy for a variety of purposes and audiences whilst developing their own individual flair. We want our children to be able to write with grammatical accuracy and be able to apply spelling patterns correctly using a neat and joined handwriting style. We aim to give the children the skills they need to identify how to improve their work, believing that good writers refine and edit their writing. We aim to expose our children to a wide range of vocabulary so that they able to decipher and use new words in their writing and when speaking both informally and formally.
Children should be confident to explain, discuss and debate clearly their understanding and ideas.
We also aim for our children to apply all of these English skills to all areas of the curriculum.
At The Abbey we use Little Wandle to teach systematic phonics focussing on phases 2-4 in Reception, this progresses to phases 3-5 in Year 1. Spelling in Year focusses on phase 5 revision initially, moving to spelling centres Little Wandle lessons in the spring and summer terms. We use Little Wandle to support children in LKS2 with further phonics interventions.
Reading in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 follow Little Wandle with reading books matched to phonic sounds learnt in class. These are also used to develop comprehension and vocabulary in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. For children in Year 2 the Little Wandle books lead in to the school banded reading books.
In KS2 at The Abbey we use VIPERS to further develop reading comprehension. Children read and listen to a range of books.
Children cover a wide variety of writing genres from Reception up to Year 6. Reception cover writing activities such as fact writing, comparison writing, description writing, map labelling, story mapping, character and setting writing. Year 1 further develop their writing skills. In Year 2 focus on writing for different purposes. including writing descriptions, instructions, stories and persuasive writing as well as fact files and non-chronological reports. In Years 3 and 4 cover genres such as poetry, instructions, biographies, newspaper reports, diaries and recounts, persuasive writing and stories in familiar settings. These genres are all further developed and progressed in UKS2.
SPaG is taught across all year groups. This is taught within English lessons as well as in discrete SPaG lessons.