English at Redhill

The Redhill Reading Spine

The Redhill Writing Routine

Our dream for Writing

At Redhill, our dream is for all children to leave our school as:

Individuals with a deep love of writing who recognise it as an artistically creative method for expressing themselves, their lives and their beliefs through fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Students who utilise writing as a method for supporting their continuous, lifelong learning through exploring ideas, recording information and observations, reflecting on experiences, concisely and accurately representing their current understanding on a subject and much more.

Authors who are proud of their writing; who have the confidence to share and celebrate their creations; who have the confidence, presentational and oracy skills to present their work to a physical or anticipated audience; and who have access to a community and a network of supportive, enthusiastic peers to offer celebration of and feedback on their accomplishments.

Expert writers with a deep well of multi-disciplinary vocabulary  and language skills; the ability to interrogate other authors’ texts and recognise and deconstruct their style and techniques to utilise in their own writing; and a clear, adaptable and reliable routine for approaching and completing any text.

Our dream for Reading

At Redhill, our dream is for all children to leave our school as:

Avid, lifelong readers and lovers of literature and poetry who are able to understand, express and celebrate their personal reading tastes whilst also maintaining a curiosity to explore and discover other authors, genres and texts.

Students who value the power of literature and recognise it as a vital, instructive tool for developing and nurturing empathy and compassion as well as an avenue for continual learning and self-development throughout their lives.

Readers with a vast knowledge of the breadth and depth of world literature and an awareness of a diverse array of authors from across all backgrounds, ethnicities, personal beliefs and experiences.

Young adults with an accelerated ability to access any text presented to them through their accelerated fluency, comprehension and deep bank of vocabulary knowledge and understanding.

Confident, critical thinkers with the aptitude and resilience to engage with challenging, lengthy books whilst reflecting on their features, qualities and, in the case of non-fiction texts, their veracity and possible bias.

Implementation

Spelling Overviews

VIPERS Bookmarks to support reading at home

At least once each half term, children will be given a special bookmark to support them and their parents with reading at home. The bookmark will contain a target based on our current VIPERS focus and some question stems specific to the level of questioning that they will be receiving in school.

Bookmarks for each skill can be downloaded here if you would like to explore them:

Redhill Literary Canon

In the 2022-23 academic year, we surveyed all of the children in our school and all of the staff in our school to find the books we all believe every child should try and read in Primary School. We selected the 50 most popular books chosen by children and the 50 most popular books chosen by adults to create our Redhill Literary Canon. During the selection process, we ensured that an author only appeared in each list of 50 once in order to ensure diversity and a range of texts. When more than one book was popular from a particular author, we chose the book which had the most recommendations. Take a look at our Redhill Literary Canon below!

Pupil View

If you have any questions about this area of the curriculum, please feel free to get in touch with the co-ordinator either through Class Dojo or by contacting the school office.