Highcliffe St Mark Primary School

English Vision Statement

English

At Highcliffe St Mark, we believe that reading is central to all learning across the curriculum.  Reading helps child to learn, to understand the world around them and to gain the knowledge to become global citizens.  We know that reading at home is an essential part of children becoming outstanding readers and because of this, children have access to a well-resourced reading scheme. This consists of banded, age and ability appropriate texts as well as Bug Club and its use across the school from EYFS to KS2.  Children read these books with adults at home and at school.  We understand the importance of “Reading for Pleasure” and teachers nurture a love of books by placing reading at the heart of the curriculum in a reading rich environment.  We believe that vocabulary development is crucially important and encourage discussion about rich language at all times.  In lessons, we develop reading skills using ‘Reading Vipers’ (Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve, Sequence or Summarise) and using high-quality texts. 

The use of high quality texts are the foundations of our writing lessons, allowing children to explore language and learn how to write for the following four purposes: to entertain, to inform, to persuade and to discuss.  At all times, they are encouraged to develop their writer’s voice and to communicate their ideas in their own, individual manner, whilst writing in the genre-specific style.  Grammar, punctuation and spelling lessons are meaningful and are integrated into sequences of writing lessons, where children are given time to practise skills and to edit and improve their writing.  We encourage children to be reflective writers who can give and receive constructive criticism, who enjoy reading their writing out loud to other children and having their writing published in a variety of different forms. 

Reading and Phonics

Reading is at the heart of everything we do. We install a love of reading in our children through providing them with daily opportunities to read and tell stories with adults and their peers. We provide an environment conducive to this by ensuring children are exposed to a rich variety of texts, opportunities to share and enjoy books and the role models they need, to experience why reading is so great! A systematic approach to teaching phonics ensures children develop fluency and confidence in reading and spelling and enables them to apply these skills within their reading and writing across the curriculum.