At Prince Bishops we aim to develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing and vocabulary in every subject. English is both a subject in its own right and the medium for teaching; for pupils, understanding the language provides access to the whole curriculum. Fluency in the English language is an essential foundation for success in all subjects.
Reading
At Prince Bishops, our staff are whole-heartedly committed to the vision that every child will develop stamina and resilience and will become a life-long reader. It is our belief that every child should be able to read for pleasure and to a high standard, enabling them to access the breadth of the curriculum and share in a love of reading with their peers. Reading has the power to ignite curiosity in the minds of our young learners, and through our exploration of a wide variety of books, we encourage pupils to question the world around them.
Teachers nurture a love of books by placing reading at the centre of the curriculum, creating inviting class bookshelves and through our well-stocked school library.
KS1
In the Early Years and KS1, daily Phonics sessions are taught to support the children’s early reading development and enable them to segment and decode words in their journey to becoming fluent and expressive readers. Children also have access to high-quality texts, which support the teaching of essential comprehension skills and immerse readers into a world of rich vocabulary and authentic contexts from a young age.
For more information about our phonics programme click here.
KS2
In KS2, teachers use a range of teaching methods to help children develop their reading skills in a way which meets their needs and challenges them appropriately. The types of questions children will explore enables them to apply key comprehension skills: discussing and exploring vocabulary; summarising themes and ideas; making predictions; discussing the author’s choice of language and the effect it has on a reader; retrieving information from the text and making inferences using clues from the text. A sense of enjoyment, wonder and anticipation is promoted throughout the exploration of a text. Book discussion is widely encouraged to help children empathise with characters, share and debate opinions and foster their own sense of identity as readers.
Writing
We have adopted an approach to writing that is based on children immersing themselves in a book and discovering the world the author has created. Each unit of work focuses on a high-quality text that provides meaningful and authentic opportunities for writing with a clear audience and purpose. Comprehension, language and grammar are taught through the context of the book and these skills are then applied rigorously in a variety of short and extended writing opportunities. The texts we use to inspire the children include fiction, non-fiction, poetry and picture books. Spelling is taught using the Read, Write Inc. Spelling programme; a fast paced, systematic spelling programme for children in Years 2 – 6. The programme supports the aims of the National Curriculum and is based on the understanding that we do have a sound-based writing system, albeit a very complex one.
English Long Term Plans