The curriculum design nurtures pupils who read easily, fluently and with enjoyment and depth of understanding. Pupils also progress into effective, not formulaic writers as they learn about how writers use language and words to impact on the reader and use them as models for their own writing.

High-quality and rich texts underpin our English curriculum and are at the heart of nurturing a love for reading in our pupils and purposeful writers.

Through language and literature, we value and celebrate diversity and encourage pupils to develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live.

At Starbank, shared reading, guided reading, individual reading and independent reading is integrated to create a comprehensive and cohesive reading curriculum to develop enthusiastic, autonomous and perceptive readers

A range of reading schemes are used to support early readers as well as guided reading. Once pupils are confident readers, we encourage teachers to use a range of quality to texts to teaching reading skills.

We believe that grammar is most effective when taught in the context of reading and writing and supported by discrete sessions. Therefore, alongside discrete grammar sessions from Y2 to Y6, teaching and learning of grammar is planned into the English teaching and learning sequence within meaningful contexts.

We recognise the importance of spelling to support our pupils to become fluent and effective writers. In Reception and KS1, children are taught to blend sounds to read and segment to spell through daily phonics sessions using the Letter and Sounds guidance. At the same time they learn words which are not phonically regular (common exception words).

In Y2 and KS2 the pupils build upon their phonic knowledge to help them to understand spelling rules and patterns introduced which are then continually practised. We teach pupils to use their growing understanding of the morphology and etymology of words to support their spelling.

English Curriculum Map

Curriculum Newsletters