Copley Primary School

English

 

Writing

Our children need to develop a passion and skill for writing, in which they feel comfortable in experimenting with different styles and formats.  From the Foundation Stage, all children’s attempts at writing, including emergent writing, are valued and built upon, so that children appreciate the importance of their writing in conveying meaning to the reader.

In KS1 and KS2 SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) is taught both discretely and as an embedded part of English lessons. Across the wider curriculum, children are encouraged to use the skills they are learning in all writing. These skills include using interesting and ambitious vocabulary, a wide range of conjunctions and thinking of interesting ways to open sentences. 

To read more about writing at Copley, please visit: Statutory Information -> Curriculum -> Writing 

Reading

 

Early Reading - for further details on our phonics curriculum in school, please see our Phonics curriculum page.

 

Reading has the highest priority in our school - we are determined that every child learns to read and develop a love of reading.

Children entering our school in EYFS are immersed in phonics from Day 1. We follow the ELS synthetic phonics programme and ensure that all children have a reading book matched to the sounds they know and understand. 

Reading has high priority on our timetabled curriculum and from year 2 upwards, children have daily dedicated reading lessons where they are introduced to a new text each week. From this, they learn new vocabulary, have opportunities to read aloud and see modelling of answering reading questions before they independently write their own. 

Our main objective at Copley is to foster in children a love of reading.  They will be encouraged to value books and read for learning and enjoyment, from a wide range of literary texts from all genres. 

Children will be encouraged to read with fluency and understanding, utilising a combination of strategies including phonic knowledge, contextual clues and sight vocabulary. Children’s awareness of syntax, punctuation, expression and comprehension will be developed and assessed through explicit teaching of reading as well as individual reading.

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To read more about reading at Copley, please visit: Statutory Information -> Curriculum -> Reading 

 

SPOKEN LANGUAGE

Oral language has a key role in classroom teaching and learning.  Discussion and interaction can engage children’s imagination and foster creativity.

In our school the key areas are:

• Speaking: being able to speak clearly and to develop and sustain ideas in talk.
• Listening: developing active listening strategies and critical skills of analysis.
• Group discussion and interaction: taking different roles in groups, making a range of contributions and working collaboratively.

Talk is an underlying factor in the development of literacy, with children engaging by responding to text and explaining their choices and rehearsing their ideas in advance of writing. Prosody lessons now take place weekly in Year 2 upwards and children are encouraged to perform aloud to others.  In maths, children are encouraged to explain their thinking and relevant language is developed.

 

In the Foundation Stage, children’s speaking and listening skills are developed across the curriculum as well as specifically in activities such as listening games, story time and role play.

 

Curriculum Documents and Policies

Genre Progression Document - In literacy, we produce writing in a range of different genres. This document explains our year group expectations in each genre of writing. 

Handwriting Policy - This policy talks about how we teach handwriting in school. 

Whole School English Core Texts - These are our main texts we teach in literacy. 

Whole School Literacy Overview - This is our Literacy overview - looking at what genres of writing we do and the texts we focus on in that term.