English

At Tunbury, our English curriculum is shaped to ensure all children are confident speakers, readers and writers by the end of their time at primary school. Children are supplied with the fundamental building blocks to fully develop their spoken language to become articulate, effective communicators.

At Tunbury, we inspire children to read and write; not only for everyday life but also to support their journey through other subjects and explore the world of literature, exposing them to rich vocabulary and imaginative characters and plots. Reading is a skill that children will require for life. Reading for pleasure is promoted at Tunbury from the moment they begin school in Reception year, to develop the love for life-long reading. We have a school library and our classes visit the local library frequently to widen their exposure to great books. Children’s fluency in reading will inspire ideas for their writing, which allows them to communicate with others and ensure access to the full curriculum.

The journey to fluency in reading begins straight away with children’s daily phonics lessons, following the Essential Letters and Sounds scheme. As soon as children have mastered the first few phonemes, they begin to use these to read and write. Further to this, in Reception and Year 1, children are taught to read and enjoy books in small groups with comprehension completed verbally. This continues into Year 2 and by the spring term, children receive daily whole class reading sessions to develop their comprehension skills. In Key Stage 2, children are taught reading through daily lessons following our reading lesson structure, using VIPERS to focus the skills and knowledge of reading. VIPERS are vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequence or summary.

There is a whole school expectation that children will read at home at least five times a week and record this in their reading diary. In Reception, Key Stage 1 and Year 3, books sent home are matched to the child’s attainment in phonics. Once a fluent, accurate and confident reader, children may select their own books to read.

Children at Tunbury have daily English lessons, with our ‘text map’ ensuring a progression of high quality texts used to support learning across the year group and the whole school. All texts are linked to SMSC to provide opportunities for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, as well as understanding of the fundamental British values.

For writing, we have also devised a teaching sequence to ensure text features, grammar, punctuation and spelling are explicitly taught and can then underpin their own excellent written pieces.

For handwriting, children learn how to form their letters correctly from the beginning; being secure in transcription skills allows children to begin to focus on composition and writing independently. As children progress through the school, we teach the children how to join letters correctly, using Letterjoin and our own handwriting progression guidance to help them to develop a fluent and efficient handwriting style.

Our phonics scheme, handwriting progression and teaching sequences for reading and writing are used across the school with fidelity to ensure children make progress with their learning in English.

Pupil voice - what do Tunbury learners think about English?

Y1 pupil: “It’s important so you’ll be good at reading to your own children.”

Y5 pupil: “It’s my favourite subject! I like long writes to use better words and work on my handwriting.”

Y6 pupil: “We really enjoyed studying ‘Who Let the Gods Out’ because it’s a comedy!”

Tunbury English Curriculum Overview and English Curriculum Progression

Please view our curriculum documentation to see how we have chosen to teach English at Tunbury Primary School.