Our shared vision for English…
The core principles of English lessons are driven by our school’s vision: Happy, Active, Inspired, Healthy Learners. The planning, delivery and outcome of each unit of work and lesson should reflect at least one of these principles.
An English lesson will be a ‘happy’ one if:
- children are working collaboratively, positively participating in class and group discussion;
- children are engaged with their learning;
- children enjoy being in the classroom;
- children take pride in the presentation of their work;
- children listen to each other and their teachers;
- children have respect for one another and feel comfortable and confident to share ideas and raise questions.
An English lesson will be active if:
- drama is used to enable learning and understanding;
- children read aloud in front of their peers;
- children work in pairs and groups;
- learning takes place in different environments;
- poetry is learnt and performed;
- children use different media to produce their work;
- children write for a real-life purpose.
An English lesson will be ‘inspiring’ if:
- it is purposeful, relevant to current affairs or popular culture;
- there are cross-curricular links;
- a unit of work has been planned around a text;
- units of work have clear learning journeys;
- writing has a purpose (e.g. displayed on website, scripts for assemblies, emails sent to authors and businesses, blogs, etc.);
- children’s writing is displayed and shared;
- children’s writing is celebrated within the school community.
An English lesson will demonstrate that children are ‘healthy learners’ if:
- children can make links between different texts;
- they can draw on previous learning and skills when encountering new units of work;
- they are able to work independently and make individual choices;
- they are able to respond to next-step marking to improve or consolidate their learning;
- they can approach challenges positively;
- they are competitive and driven;
- they are questions;
- they support and offer help to others;
- they take pride in the presentation of their work;
- they develop skills for life and cultural capital.
At Poringland Primary School and Nursery we believe that reading should be at the heart of our curriculum. We aim to engender a life-long love of reading; encouraging children to read for pleasure whilst simultaneously developing discrete word-reading and comprehension skills. We achieve this by giving the children access to a wide variety of genres and texts through:
- a well-resourced and dedicated library space;
- an up-to-date and ‘topic focussed’ selection of books in every classroom;
- the opportunity to access and download e-books from an online library of over 1000 books;
- being read to every day so that all children can experience high quality and exciting texts.
We believe that every child has the right to read; it is our duty to ensure our children leave Poringland Primary School with the reading skills needed to successfully access a high school curriculum and the world around them.