Our English Vision – igniting a passion for literature and developing writers for the real world.
Our Principles of English Teaching
We know that great English happens in our school when:
- Children are writing for read audiences and purposes.
- Children are motivated to write and strive to achieve their best through editing and redrafting.
- Children present their ideas in a variety of ways and do so with pride.
- Children enjoy reading a variety of genres written by a variety of authors.
- Children complete varied tasks of achievable but challenging difficulty.
Phonics
At Key Stage 1, we follow 'Read Write Inc' as our Phonics programme and pupils are grouped for these sessions according to need. Phonics is taught daily in KS1 for 20 minutes, covering all phases within the programme and including elements of SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar).
Reading in Key Stage 1
The Key Stage One Reading Scheme is made up of coloured bookbands that match up with our phonics scheme, Read Write Inc. Children move up through the bands based on progress in reading sessions, English lessons and phonics assessments, which are carried out at least half termly.
Reading in Key Stage 2
At Calveley, we use the Accelerated Reader system. In order to foster a love of reading and to ensure that children meet a range of text styles, the reading scheme is vast. Publishers/schemes include: PEARSON, Oxford Reading Tree, Collins Big Cat, PM Benchmark, Project X and a mix of individually levelled books.
If you'd like to check whether a book you have at home is on the Accelerated Reader system, use the button below. The "reading expectations" document below also explains which level children should be reading in each year: Accelerated Reader Bookfinder
Spelling
Throughout the school we teach spelling during discrete Letters and Sounds and SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) sessions. Children explore spelling rules and patterns and apply this understanding in their written work.
The children also learn a specific list of words from their year group spelling list. Each week, they spend some of their spelling lesson time learning the words which they are then assessed on at the end of the week. Only when they spell are able to spell the words correctly, can they move on to the next set of words.
The "spelling progression" document below details all of the spellings to be learnt within each year group. The spelling patterns can also be found within the "spelling patterns" document.
