English

We want our children to leave Lyne and Longcross school with high standards of literacy and ready for their next steps in education. We provide a broad English curriculum, making connections with our key themes of learning. High quality texts and other media are used to capture children curiosity and make sure they have access to a wide range of text types and themes. We strive to ensure diversity is key within our English teaching and want every child to recognise themselves in the texts they study and enjoy. Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and a significant amount of time and resources are dedicated to developing this fundamentally important life skill. We aim to teach reading in a way which fosters enjoyment, creativity and engagement as we recgonise the link between reading for pleasure and future success for children.

Aims

The overarching aim for English is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written words, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. We aim to inspire and enable children to:

• 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.
• 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 presentation, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Phonics and Early Reading

In Reception, all children have daily phonics sessions following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised program. This program was introduced in September 2021 and is DFE validated. This is further developed in Year 1 with daily teaching continuing the program. The use of phonics for reading and spelling is then reinforced within the context of reading sessions and writing teaching. Catch up sessions are provided for those children who are struggling to develop blending skills and need support to keep up with the program. Further information regarding how this program is implemented within school can be found at https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/

In the summer term of Year 1, the children will take part in the national Phonics Screening Check. Due to COVID19, two cohorts have taken the screening test in Autumn term of year two. Children who do not achieve the required standard receive further phonics teaching and resit the screening in the Summer term of year 2.

For further information about the teaching of English at Lyne and Longcross, please see our English policy.

Watch this space to see what we did during our Book Week! 

We were absolutely delighted of the response we had to the October half term reading challenge. It was wonderful to see the Reception and KS1 children taking home their new reading teddies with books as well as watching the children excitedly unwrap their books at the gates at home time. Thank you to parents for donating books and teddies and to those who gave feedback. Now we are busy coming up with ideas for February half term. 

" I have to say, it’s been a great success in our household. My child came home really excited to read his new book and he loved having the opportunity to bring a teddy home too, he even gave it a guided tour of the house! Thank you, I’d highly recommend doing this again."

"...He’s really enjoyed reading it with his hippo over half term. Thanks a lot for organising, it was a really fun idea!"

Helping your child at home

There are many ways for parents to support children with the development of English skills at home. If you have specific queries, we encourage you to speak to your child's teacher who will know exactly what the next steps in learning are for your child.

The document below contains some useful ideas for increasing reading and writing opportunities at home. It also suggests some strategies that can be used when practising spellings.