Our Intent

At Broad Chalke CofE Primary School, we deliver a quality English curriculum that develops our children’s skills and enjoyment of speaking, reading and writing. In keeping with our Church School values, we recognise that every child is unique and special and, as such, the overarching aim of the study of English is to develop each child’s unique ability to speak, listen, read and write for a wide range of purposes, including the communication of their views, ideas and feelings.

We aim to inspire an appreciation of high-quality texts and a habit of reading widely and often. We want children to engage with a wide variety of authors from different time periods and backgrounds; we are committed to ensuring that pupils are exposed to a relevant and rich reading diet. Children are encouraged to read books at school and at home, either from the school library or the school’s reading scheme, in order to develop both reading fluency and a love for reading. We believe that passionate and enthusiastic readers become confident and creative writers and these skills enable children to become ‘ready’ and eager learners throughout the wider curriculum.

At Broad Chalke CofE Primary School, children’s reading, writing, grammar and punctuation learning comes from within the ‘world of the book’: immersing children in well-crafted, creative texts inspires well-crafted, creative writing. Using a well-written text as a model allows children to see rich vocabulary, accurate grammar and effective punctuation being used and to mimic this in their own writing.

We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children are taught to take pride in their written work by developing a neat, joined and legible style of handwriting and by using accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation. Pupils also learn to adapt their language and style for a range of contexts and purposes so that their writing is matched closely to purpose, audience and form.

Our Implementation

Phonics & Reading (also see our separate phonics tab)

Phonics is an enormous part of learning to read. From the moment that pupils join us in EYFS, they access daily, high-quality phonics sessions rooted in the validated systematic, synthetic phonics programme Unlocking Letters and Sounds. This provision continues through Year 1 and the autumn term of Year 2 to ensure that pupils have time to master phonics.

As part of the phonics scheme, it is recommended that you read the same book with your child at home multiple times throughout the week. This approach is rooted in research that says that children's reading fluency and word recognition improves every time they read the same book. Your child's class teacher will be able to answer any questions that you have about this.

Once children are confident with their word recognition and decoding skills, their reading lessons will shift to have a heavier comprehension focus. This means that children will be challenged to explain what they've read and share their understanding of what a text means. In KS2, we use the VIPERS approach to Guided Reading lessons. 

Spelling & Handwriting

Spelling and handwriting are both important transcription elements of the writing process. Through EYFS and Key Stage 1, pupils are taught spelling as part of the Unlocking Letters and Sounds phonics programme. After this, pupils are taught spelling using a programme called ESSENTIALSpelling. ESSENTIALspelling is a whole class approach to teaching spelling that enables all children to succeed and gives teachers the unique tools to make that happen. Across the school, the handwriting programme Letterjoin is used with pupils to encourage them to write in a neat, accurate and legible style.

Working Walls

Working Walls are used in every classroom to support the children's learning in English. These walls contain current learning and equip the children to become more independent learners.