English
Reading
At Dunton Green, we inspire our children through a meaningful reading curriculum that fosters a love of literature, develops vocabulary, critical thinking and comprehension skills, and provides exposure to a wide range of genres and authors.
Writing
At Dunton Green, we inspire our children through a meaningful writing curriculum that is centred around a quality core text and encourages creativity; focuses on the skills required to write coherently and effectively, and supports the writing of a variety of genres.
English at Dunton Green
At Dunton Green, we believe that becoming literate is central to children’s development. As a result, we ensure that English is taught every day, in every classroom. Children are given further opportunities to read and write across the curriculum in order to expose them to different genres and to help increase both reading and writing stamina.
Each term, the children are introduced to a quality core text which closely relate to the topics children are studying. We have found this this approach engages the children, fosters a love of reading, and acts as an exciting and relevant stimulus for writing opportunities. The texts are varied and include historical narratives, adventure stories, poetry books and picture books.
Writing skills taught in English lessons are in line with the National Curriculum and the progression of these skills has been mapped out across each term and matched closely to our core texts to ensure that skills are taught gradually, repeatedly and relevantly. Please refer Appendix 1 to see how: spelling, handwriting, SPAG (Spelling Punctuation Grammar), composition/text building and effect on the reader are plotted in each year group.
Spelling lessons are taught from the No Nonsense scheme of learning to ensure progression and consistency from Year 2 to Year 6. Daily handwriting lessons are taught in Key Stage 1 and in Key Stage 2, targeted intervention groups are run by teaching partners.
In Key Stage 2, on Friday mornings, the children are given the opportunity to independently apply their new writing skills in their Friday Books; during this time, the class teacher can conference with a number of pupils to set writing targets or address misconceptions in writing.
As well as a daily English lessons, the children are given separate reading lessons four times a week, which cover a range of skills including: Decoding/word-reading; comprehension and retrieval; inference; responding to texts; fluency and phrasing and vocabulary. Please refer to Appendix 2 to see how this is broken down further and to see the progression of skills in each year group.
‘Drop Everything And Read’ or DEAR, is a daily reading opportunity designed to: encourage our children to read for pleasure, develop children’s fluency, and broaden their knowledge of authors and genres. Class story time takes place nearly every day across the school, where children are read to by an adult. The books are chosen carefully to ensure that children experience a range of genres and authors. Daily reading at home - recorded in a Reading Record - is also required at Dunton Green and books are carefully matched to children’s reading ability. We have well-stocked book corners in each classroom as well as a full library that the children can regularly use to choose books for learning and for pleasure.
Whenever possible, further opportunities to engage the children in language and literature beyond the curriculum are always utilised. This could be through trips, workshops in school, National Poetry Days, World Book Days and author visits. In recent years, we have played host to storytellers, authors and Shakespearian actors.
