English at Bradley School underpins all aspects of our education and school community. We plan our English curriculum to provide children with the skills they need to be successful in life. Mastering a wide range of English skills is the key to opening the doors to different opportunities as the children grow older.

We expect all our pupils to develop into thoughtful readers and creative writers and it is through the use of high quality class texts and the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach that we believe we can achieve this. The multi-sensory and interactive teaching style of this enables pupils of all ages and abilities to learn to write a wide range of stories and text types.

Through using high-quality texts, immersing children in vocabulary rich learning environments and ensuring new curriculum expectations and the progression of skills are met, the children at Bradley Primary School will be exposed to a language heavy, creative and continuous English curriculum which will not only enable them to become primary literate, but will also develop a love of reading, creative writing and purposeful speaking and listening.

Speaking and Listening

Beginning in Reception and continuing through all Primary years, the children develop their capacity to express themselves effectively for a variety of purposes. Working with adults and other children, their activities include listening, giving opinions, replying to instructions and questions, describing experiences and feelings. Starting in EYFS and KS1, children re-tell familiar stories using actions and story maps following our ‘Talk for Writing’ approach.

As the children progress through the school, they extend these skills to recount events, tell more complex stories, take on dramatic roles, report, summarise and predict. Children are also provided with opportunities to compose, recite and perform poetry. Class assemblies give the children a chance to showcase their learning to parents and the rest of the school.

It is usual for EYFS children to perform in a Christmas Nativity and Year 6 to end the year with a summer show.

Reading

At Bradley Primary School, children learn not only the mechanics of reading, but to become accomplished, comprehending readers, developing the habit of silent reading and a love of reading for life.

We are continuing to use whole class texts as the starting point for our English lessons, embedding high quality literature across the school.

Each class has a designated reading area to help promote the love and high importance that reading holds in our school. We have a fabulous library where there is a range of fiction and non-fiction books which the children are able to take home. Our highly knowledgeable librarian uses her love of reading to promote reading for enjoyment and to make recommendations to children from EYFS to Y6. She also has a team of very willing junior librarians who are all superb advocates of promoting reading for pleasure. A variety of events such as World Book Day and Bedtime Story Day are held annually purely for enjoyment. Our Year 6 volunteers listen to children read in KS1.

Lower down the school parents are encouraged to share a home reading book with their child, listen to them read and write a comment in their Reading Record. Further up the school children write their own comments in their Reading Records.

Writing

Spelling, Handwriting and Composition – These strands go hand in hand throughout the Curriculum.

Children at Bradley Primary School develop a growing ability to write in a range of styles and writing outcomes are always purposeful and seek ‘real’ audiences through publication and display.

Teachers follow the Talk for Writing approach and use oral work as a prelude to most writing tasks and vocabulary is explicitly taught. Writing tasks are broken down into smaller steps with feedback given from the class teacher at different stages (e.g. brainstorming, planning, boxing up, drafting and editing). Emphasis is laid upon drafting, as a process to encourage children to improve the construction, spelling and layout of their written work.  

All children in KS2 have ‘spelling’ books where they note down new vocabulary and their own definition, written in context which they then use in their own work. Much of their writing is developed from the use of high quality literature, as the children respond to plot, character, illustration and ideas.

They are taught the rudiments of grammar, progressively from Reception through to Year 6, both discretely, as well as in the context of the literature they are studying.

Children from Y1 upwards are given individualised spellings weekly and are encouraged to not only spell the words, but understand their meanings.

Our aim, over time is to ensure our children become accomplished proficient spellers – much needed in these days of text speak.

We follow the cursive handwriting scheme and children are encouraged to prove that they are writing, using the correct joins, in order to have their own ‘pen licence’.

Impact

The impact on our children is clear: progress, sustained learning and transferable skills.  With the implementation of the writing journey being well established and taught thoroughly in both key stages, children are becoming more confident writers and by the time they are in upper Key Stage 2, most genres of writing are familiar to them and the teaching can focus on creativity, writer’s craft, sustained writing and manipulation of grammar and punctuation skills.

As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing standards have also improved and skills taught in the English lesson are transferred into other subjects; this shows consolidation of skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use specific grammar, punctuation and grammar objectives.

Phonics Play Website: Click the Image above.

Below are all the past Phonics Screening Tests to have a go at home.