English

Welcome to our English team!

Please can we introduce you to our English team. 

Mrs N Harris (Year 4) Miss Harris loves teaching English and is an avid reader herself. With all aspects of English, Mrs Harris is incredibly enthusiastic and passionate about creating happy readers and writers.

Mrs P Watson (Year 2) - Mrs Watson is passionate about creating a love of reading for all children at Norwood. She loves to do this through encouraging children to read challenging and diverse books to read both at home and in school.

Miss S Moreland (Year1) - At school, Miss S Moreland's favourite subject was English. Her greatest wish as a teacher is to ensure that the children of Norwood have a chance to experience the same joyous experiences with reading and writing. She is an avid reader and loves the adventures that books can take her on.

Mrs R Thorpe (Year R) - Mrs Thorpe loves to read and has a real passion for early reading. She loves teaching phonics which is the foundations for all successful readers. Her biggest enjoyment is to see children progress in reading across the school, having raught them at the beginning of thier journey. 

Intent
At Norwood Primary, we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. We aim to inspire an appreciation of our rich and varied literary heritage and a habit of reading widely and often. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts. At Norwood, we are passionate about our phonics teaching, as well as developing our SPAG knowledge.  We want to inspire children to be confident in the art of speaking and listening, and who can use discussion to communicate and further their learning.

We believe that children need to develop a secure knowledge-base in English, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. We believe that a secure basis in English skills is crucial to a high-quality education and will give our children the tools they need to participate fully as a member of society. This year we are focussing on extending our children’s vocabulary knowledge through reading and subject based work. We believe the greater the vocabulary a child has, the greater their knowledge.

Implementation

These aims are embedded across our English lessons and the wider curriculum. We have a rigorous and well organised English curriculum that provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion. Teachers adapt the KLIPS and LANCS planning as appropriate to their classes, but also ensure that cross curricular links with concurrent topic work are woven into the programme of study. Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum (2014) for English.

The National Curriculum (2014) 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.

In addition to daily English lessons, children excel in early reading through the use of our Phonics sessions from Reception – Year 2 and continue to develop a range of reading skills, as well as a love of reading through both guided reading and whole class teaching. Further support is given in Year 2 and 3 for any children who did not pass their phonics test in Year 1.

We use a wide variety of quality texts and resources to motivate and inspire our children.

Impact

As a result, we have a community of enthusiastic readers and writers who enjoy showcasing their developing English knowledge and skills. They are confident to take risks in their reading and writing, and love to discuss and share their ideas. Our attainment at the end of EYFS, KS1 and KS2 is just below the national average.

By the end of Year 6 we want Norwood children:

By the end of Year 6, pupils’ reading and writing should be sufficiently fluent and effortless for them to manage the general demands of the curriculum in Year 7, across all subjects and not just in English. However, there will be a need for pupils to continue to learn subject specific vocabulary. They should be able to reflect their understanding of the audience and purpose of their writing by selecting appropriate vocabulary and grammar. Teachers should prepare pupils for secondary education, by ensuring that they can consciously control sentence structure in their writing and understand why sentences are constructed as they are. Pupils should understand nuances in vocabulary choice and age-appropriate, academic vocabulary. This involves consolidation, practice and discussion of language.

Specific requirements for pupils to discuss what they are learning and to develop their wider skills in spoken language form part of this programme of study. In Years 5 and 6, pupils’ confidence, enjoyment and mastery of language should be extended through public speaking, performance and debate.

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