English

English at Redhill

The Redhill Reading Spine

The Redhill Writing Routine

Intent

Language and literacy are of personal, social and economic importance. Our ability to use language lies at the centre of the development and expression of our emotions, our thinking, our learning and our sense of personal identity. Language is itself a key aspect of our culture; through language, children and young people can gain access to the literary heritage of humanity and develop their appreciation of the richness and breadth of our literary heritage. Learning to read in the first years of primary school is critical for retention and success in future years. Literacy is the cornerstone of development; It leads to better health, better employment opportunities, safer and more stable societies. Indeed, literacy has been defined as 'the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language, and the range of texts, which society values and finds useful.'

When our children leave Redhill, we strive for them to be avid readers - children who read fluently and widely and are able to express preferences and opinions about the texts that they read. We want them to regularly read for pleasure, having had access to a wide range of text types, genres and authors in order for them to make informed opinions about their favourites.

Our aim is to produce children who write with confidence and accuracy for a variety of purposes and audiences whilst developing their own individual flair. We want our children to be able to write with grammatical accuracy and be able to apply spelling patterns correctly using a neat handwriting style. We aim to expose our children to a wide range of vocabulary so that they able to decipher new words and then use them when speaking both informally and formally.

We expect our children to apply all of these English skills to all areas of the curriculum and to utilise their language and literacy skills and knowledge in all subjects and in their everyday lives.

Our approach is underpinned by high expectations; all children are expected to make accelerated progress from their starting points and we expect that every child, where possible, passes the phonics check in Year 1. In Year 6 we aim for a majority of children to achieve the ‘greater depth’ standard. We have achieved these high standards consistently and Redhill is often placed in the top 10% of schools nationally for reading results. These high expectations also apply to our teachers who we can rely on to teach and model the skills needed to succeed in English, providing examples of good practice and having high expectations.

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.