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At Sheriff Hutton Primary School, we believe that English is the foundation of our curriculum. The ability to read, write, speak and listen confidently enables children to access learning across every subject and provides them with the skills they need to succeed throughout their lives.
We want every child to become a fluent and enthusiastic reader, confident writer and effective communicator. We achieve this through a rich, language-focused curriculum that combines high-quality texts, systematic phonics teaching, explicit vocabulary development, purposeful writing and opportunities to talk, listen and share ideas.
English is taught daily as a discrete subject, but its importance extends across the whole curriculum. Children are encouraged to apply their reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar and communication skills in every subject and in real-life contexts.
We recognise that every child has their own starting point. Through careful assessment and responsive teaching, we identify individual needs and provide the appropriate support and challenge so that every child can make progress and experience success.
Reading is at the heart of our English curriculum. We want children to become fluent, confident readers who read for both pleasure and purpose.
Our reading curriculum is built around three key principles:
Learning to read – developing secure phonics knowledge and reading fluency.
Reading to learn – developing vocabulary, comprehension, inference and critical reading skills.
Reading for pleasure – developing a lifelong love of books and reading.
We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic synthetic phonics programme and Accelerated Reader from Year 2 onwards to support children’s developing independence and reading choices.
We believe that all children can learn to read. We teach phonics using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, a systematic and synthetic phonics programme, beginning in Reception.
Children are taught the alphabetic code systematically and are given regular opportunities to practise blending, segmenting, decoding and spelling. Phonics knowledge is reinforced through reading and writing across the curriculum.
Our approach ensures that children build progressively towards becoming fluent, accurate and confident readers.
Daily Phonics
Phonics is taught daily in Reception and Year 1, following the Little Wandle progression. Children revisit and review previously taught sounds and words alongside new learning.
Children who require additional support receive targeted Keep-up teaching so that gaps are addressed quickly. Children in Year 2 and above who have not yet secured the required phonics knowledge or fluency receive additional support through Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up, ensuring that they are given the teaching they need to become successful readers.
Reading Practice
In Reception and Year 1, children take part in regular reading practice sessions with books carefully matched to their secure phonic knowledge.
These sessions develop three key aspects of reading:
Books are carefully matched to children’s phonics knowledge so that they can experience success and develop confidence.
The reading practice book is then taken home so that children can share their success with their families.
As children become increasingly fluent, we broaden their reading experiences and develop their independence as readers.
From Year 2 onwards, we use Accelerated Reader to support children’s reading development. This helps children to select books that are appropriately matched to their reading ability while encouraging them to explore a wide range of genres, authors and subjects.
Children regularly read independently and complete quizzes to demonstrate their understanding. Teachers use this information alongside their own professional assessment to monitor progress and identify children who may need additional support or challenge.
We want children to develop the ability to choose books for themselves while also being encouraged to read beyond familiar genres and authors.
We believe that reading for pleasure is an essential part of a child’s education.
Children are read to every day and experience a wide range of carefully selected books, including classic and contemporary children’s literature, poetry, non-fiction and books which reflect different cultures, experiences and perspectives.
Our classrooms provide inviting spaces for reading, with well-stocked and regularly refreshed book areas. Children are encouraged to recommend books to each other, talk about authors and share their reading experiences.
Across the school year, we celebrate reading through activities such as:
We want children to develop a sense of themselves as readers and to discover books that they can enjoy, discuss and return to throughout their lives.
We use Literacy Tree as the basis for our English writing curriculum. The scheme provides a text-rich approach in which high-quality children’s literature provides the stimulus and context for writing.
We carefully select texts that:
Children are taught to write for a range of purposes and audiences, including narrative, poetry, explanation, information, persuasion and discussion.
Writing develops progressively through the school, with children learning to apply the grammar, punctuation, spelling and composition objectives appropriate to their year group.
We want children to see themselves as
Writing lessons provide opportunities for children to:
Children are explicitly taught the skills of writing and then given opportunities to apply them independently.
Grammar, punctuation and spelling are taught both explicitly and within meaningful writing contexts, allowing children to understand not simply what a grammatical feature is, but why and when it is used.
Spelling is taught systematically alongside phonics and English.
In the early years, spelling develops directly from children’s phonics knowledge. As children progress through the school, they develop increasingly sophisticated knowledge of spelling patterns, rules and morphology.
Literacy Tree’s Spelling Seeds resources support our spelling curriculum alongside our wider teaching of vocabulary, phonics and spelling patterns.
Children are encouraged to apply their spelling knowledge in their independent writing and to develop strategies for checking and correcting their own work.
We use Letter-Join to support the systematic teaching of handwriting.
Children develop handwriting progressively, beginning with correct letter formation and developing towards fluent, joined and legible handwriting.
Handwriting is practised regularly and children are encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their work. As their handwriting becomes increasingly automatic, they are able to concentrate more fully on the content and quality of their writing.
Speaking and listening underpin our English curriculum.
Children are given regular opportunities to:
We recognise that a rich spoken vocabulary is fundamental to both reading and writing. Teachers therefore deliberately model ambitious language and provide children with opportunities to hear and use new vocabulary throughout the curriculum.
English is not confined to the English lesson.
Children apply their reading, writing, speaking and vocabulary skills across the wider curriculum. They may write explanations in Science, persuasive texts in Geography, historical accounts in History or reports about their learning in other subjects.
High expectations for spelling, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary and presentation are maintained across the curriculum.
This helps children understand that English is not simply a subject they study, but a set of essential skills that they use to learn, communicate and participate in the wider world.
We believe that every child can become a successful reader, writer and communicator.
Our English curriculum is designed to be inclusive and ambitious for all children, including children with SEND and those who may experience other barriers to learning.
Teachers use assessment to identify individual starting points and adapt teaching accordingly. This may include:
We recognise that children may make progress at different rates and celebrate individual achievement alongside attainment against age-related expectations.
Our choice of books and texts also reflects our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion. Children encounter characters, authors, cultures, families, communities and experiences that reflect the diversity of the world around them and also provide opportunities to learn about experiences different from their own.
We want every child to see themselves as a reader, writer and communicator, and to understand that their voice and ideas matter.
Assessment is an integral part of our English teaching.
Teachers use ongoing formative assessment to identify what children know, understand and can do, and to identify misconceptions or gaps at the earliest opportunity.
In phonics and early reading, Little Wandle assessments are used to identify gaps and plan appropriate Keep-up or Rapid Catch-up provision.
As children progress through the school, teachers use a range of evidence including:
Assessment information is used to inform planning, identify children who require additional support and ensure that appropriate challenge is provided.
By the time children leave Sheriff Hutton Primary School, we want them to:
Most importantly, we want our children to leave Sheriff Hutton Primary School as confident readers, enthusiastic writers and articulate communicators, with a lifelong appreciation of books, language and the power of words.
We use a range of carefully selected resources and schemes to support our English curriculum:
These programmes provide structure and progression while teachers retain the flexibility to adapt teaching to the needs, interests and starting points of the children in their class.
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