English
English teaching at Trinity C of E Primary School will ensure that children develop a love of the English language while developing their speaking and listening, reading and writing abilities.
Speaking and Listening
Children are taught to become confident speakers and attentive listeners. At Trinity children across the school are encouraged to collaborate with each other in lessons. This encourages confidence and develops purposeful talk. We also have a fortnightly lesson called Big Talk, where children are taught skills to help them articulate their ideas and broaden their use of vocabulary.
Phonics and Reading
Children will develop a love of reading through an exposure to high quality texts, as well as a well-structured phonics scheme, Sounds Write that teaches them to read independently at a rate that is perfectly matched to them individually. They will be taught phonics, through EYFS, Key Stage 1 and into Year 3. This provides them with the skills needed to blend sounds for reading and segment words for writing. It will enable children to read phonetically decodable books independently, to develop confidence and fluency. They will study a wide range of both fiction and non-fiction texts in Guided Reading and English lessons. Children will be taught how to develop key comprehension skills including prediction, summarising, retrieval and inference. A child’s reading level is monitored closely and appropriate books are sent home for daily reading, which we view as an absolute necessity.
Reading Suggestion
Evidence suggests that children who read for enjoyment every day not only perform better in reading assessments than those who don’t, but also develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures.
In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that reading for pleasure is more likely to determine whether a child does well at school than their social or economic background. Every year Book Trust releases its Great Books Guide, providing a handy guide to the some of the best books the past year had to offer. Each book is reviewed and offers a reading age as well as an interest age. Books are reviewed for ages 0 to 14 years and above.
Writing
Children will learn to write fluently and coherently for a range of audiences. Spelling lessons as well as grammar and punctuation lessons are taught weekly, but these areas are viewed as a priority across the curriculum. Teachers work tirelessly to support each child with their personal misconceptions in order to move them forward quickly. Pupils are also expected to develop their handwriting in weekly lessons as the presentation of their written work should be of a high standard. Pupils are taught how to write in the cursive style and are encouraged to start joining their letters from an early age. Every child in Key Stage 2 strives to achieve a pen licence which enables them to complete all their written work in a blue pen from that day forward.