English at Mapperley

We believe that literacy is a fundamental life skill. English develops children's abilities to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of purposes. Children are enabled to express themselves creatively and imaginatively as they become enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry and drama, as well as of non-fiction and media texts. An understanding of how language works can be gained through exploring its patterns, structures and origins. Using and applying skills in speaking, reading and writing across a range of subjects and situations supports proficiency. By widening their knowledge, understanding and appreciation of English in all its forms, we seek to help pupils see the importance of English as a subject in itself but also as a key to unlocking their enjoyment and success in other subjects, ultimately leading them towards becoming confident, competent and fluent speakers, listeners, readers and writers for life.

Aims and Objectives:

• To enable children to speak clearly and audibly and to take account of their listeners.
• To encourage children to listen with concentration, in order to identify the main points of what they have heard.
• To show children how to adapt their speech to a wide range of circumstances and demands.
• To teach children effective communication, both verbal and non-verbal, through a variety of drama activities, including the communication of their ideas, views and feelings.
• To help them become confident, independent readers, through an appropriate focus on word, sentence and text-level knowledge.
• To develop enthusiastic and reflective readers, through contact with challenging and substantial texts.
• To foster the enjoyment of writing and a recognition of its value.
• To encourage accurate and meaningful writing, be it narrative or non-fiction.
• To improve the planning, drafting and editing of their written work, with emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar.

We select books, novels and stimuli with the children in mind and where possible, involve the children in these choices. These stimuli may be linked to the unit they are learning, children’s interests or current interests. In Key stage 1 the children will  picture books over a unit.  The reading and writing skills are in the files.

In the Autumn Terms Key Stage 2 will focus on reading one or two full novels, completely engaging in these texts - linking our other genres to this text where possible. In the Spring terms they focus on extracts, exposing children to as many different texts as possible. In the Summer term they explore a range of books and poetry in more detail. Throughout this work non-fiction is woven through the English work.

Reading and Phonics

All children in Discoverers (EYFS & Key Stage 1) have daily discrete phonics sessions. We use a combination of the 'Letters and Sounds' programme and other supporting resources for our planning and teaching, including books from Big Cat Phonics and Oxford Reading Tree. The children are grouped and taught different phases according to their level. We work daily with the children to apply phonics skills in all areas of their reading and writing. If children in Key Stage 2 require further phonic teaching, this is delivered through intervention work, either in small groups or 1:1.

Mapperley 100+ Books to Read Before You Leave

We have a collection of books that we encourage children to read before they leave Mapperley. These books are in 3 groups- Red, for younger readers, Blue more challenging and Green for older readers. These books are read in addition to reading scheme books and class readers.

Reading Raffle Tickets

At Mapperley CE Primary, we expect the children to be reading at least 3 times a week at home. This can be with an adult, sibling or independently, if your child is a confident reader. It will be the children’s responsibility to show their Reading Record to their class teacher that they have been reading at home. Please ensure that your child brings their reading record & reading book to school everyday. This will allow us to see how often your child is reading at home, as well as the type of books your child is reading & to help them progress with their reading. Please encourage your children to read a range of fiction & non-fiction books. It's great to see children already gaining raffle tickets- thank you for your support with your child's reading.

Each week that your child reads at home on at least 3 occasions will earn them a raffle ticket. A ticket for each class is pulled out half termly & the winning child gets to choose & place an order for a book prize of their choice from our catalogues. The more raffle tickets your child earns, the more likely they are to be in with a chance of winning.

Raffle ticket winners will be announced at the end of each half term.