English

Speaking and Listening
We aim to enable children to become confident, independent communicators with a wide vocabulary.  They are given the opportunity to share and explore their ideas with others in a wide range of contexts, including discussion, role-play, drama and class and school presentations.  We encourage them to listen carefully to others and speak clearly and confidently in class discussions.

Reading
We aim to develop positive attitudes towards books, so that children can read for pleasure, interest and information.  We ensure that children are offered a wide range of stimulating texts. We encourage children to become critical readers, to read individually and in large or small groups.  We teach reading through phonic work, sight vocabulary and using picture and context clues.  Children take books home every week and we encourage parents to support their children by reading with them every day.  We have a well stocked library, which supports all aspects of the curriculum.

Writing
We aim to develop in children the ability to write for a wide range of purposes, for example, stories, letters, poems and reports.  They learn how to write for different purposes and for different audiences.  We encourage children to be creative and imaginative using good examples from children's literature as a starting point.  We teach children how to spell words which occur frequently in their writing and which have common spelling patterns.  We encourage children to "have a go" at spelling and value their attempts.  We enable children to gain an understanding of English grammar and punctuation through reading and writing.  We teach children to write in a well formed fluent handwriting style.