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English

Intent

We want all children to have the skills necessary to be excellent writers. Attention is paid to developing grammar, spelling and punctuation through the delivery of well-planned, rigorously monitored lessons. These always incorporate both modelled and shared writing to demonstrate to the children the thought processes and skills necessary to be an effective writer. End of unit independent writing, meeting varying genres, allows children the chance to refine their editing skills. Children often self and peer assess and help each other to re-draft and improve their work.

Reading is so developmentally important and we believe reading is key to unlocking all potential in English. We believe good writers are keen readers because reading helps develop an ideas bank on which they can draw upon when writing. Whole class reading takes place every week to develop children’s comprehension skills. Every class utilises their class readers to promote enjoyment of reading, vocabulary and to explore themes within books.

For those children who need extra support with their reading, we follow Project X CODE. Project X CODE is an innovative reading intervention programme, which combines systematic synthetic phonics, comprehension development, motivational 3D design and gripping stories to accelerate struggling readers’ progress so that children reach expected literacy levels as soon as possible. For those children who need additional phonics support, we follow the Twinkl programme, which is validated by the DfE and is a Systematic, Synthetic Phonics programme.

We want our pupils to become articulate and confident young people and therefore we present children with frequent opportunities to develop these skills through talking partner work, class discussions, sharing work and active listening.

Reading for pleasure

Reading with and to your child is incredibly important. At Field Junior School, your child will have a variety of reading experiences, which will help them progress as a reader and we aim to foster a love of reading in all children. 
 
What reading happens at Field: 
 
  • Every class has a Class Reader which is read to the class by the teacher. 
  • Every child completes a Guided Reading session each week where the focus will be on answering questions from a text.
  • If your child has any gaps in their reading or spelling of individual phonemes, then they will attend Code Breaker phonics sessions (4x week). 
  • If your child needs more support with their reading and understanding texts, then they will attend Code X sessions (4x week). 
  • The library is open daily and children will also have a weekly class slot. 
  • Reading Ambassadors carry out ‘Buddy Reading’ and support some children with reading their book. 
  • Children will be listened to 1:1 by an adult. 
 
How you can help at home: 
 
Listening to your child read is really important, please use the question prompts to help you to ask them questions about the text. Please also sign their Link Book. 
 
Reading for Pleasure is also incredibly important; here is a link to help you get ideas on how you can share and choose a book for your child: 
 

 

Book club

This spring term we have a book club with Miss Emerick. Children from Years 3 and 4 have it on Tuesdays from 12.30pm to 1pm and for Years 5 and 6 it’s on Thursdays from 12pm to 12.30pm at the school library. Year 4 children will be helping Year 3 children with the reading. They have just started The Bad Beginning: A Series of Unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket. Years 5 and 6 are discussing Wolf Brother,  which is the first book in the series Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver.

Pupil Voice

Mrs Kenyon has been carrying out some pupil voice for reading with the children and she is pleased to say that their overwhelming response has been positive! 
 
All children spoken to enjoyed their class reader and enjoyed their teacher spending time reading to them. The children enjoyed going to the library every week and hearing recommendations from their class mates on what to read from either the main library or their class library. They talked about reading with their parents at home, who helped them and asked them questions and they told me that they changed their reading book regularly.  
When Mrs Kenyon asked what the children liked about reading the responses were: 
 
Year 6: 
Reading is like a dream-when you read, stuff comes into your head.
Reading inspires me to write my own stories.
 
Year 4: 
It makes you learn stuff you don’t know. 
It gives me a big imagination. 
It’s interesting: once I start reading, I wonder what’s going to happen next. 
 

Reading Scheme

In Field Junior School, we have invested in a variety of new books on our whole school reading scheme, which ensure that the children have a range of genres to choose from in every colour band that they are reading. The bands run from Purple band (level 8) all the way up to Cream (level 18) and in each band, there are fiction, non-fiction and poetry titles. We have just invested in more of the Gold Shimmer band books (level 16). We hope that the children enjoy choosing from these new titles!