English

We want every child to have every opportunity to experience success in each English learning episode.

All children are given the opportunity to study English to develop their abilities to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of purposes, so using language to learn and communicate ideas, views and feelings.

Children access an engaging, exciting and innovative English curriculum which enables and empowers their written and oral communication and creativity. Children are presented with opportunity to become articulate writers and speakers, through the use of purposeful language and vocabulary.

By developing every child’s ability to reflect on their own and others’ contributions and the language used, it allows them a greater understanding of the world around them, equipping them with the skills to become lifelong learners.

Roseberry Primary School’s English Aims

At Roseberry Primary School, our English curriculum aims to develop confident, articulate and enthusiastic readers, writers, speakers and listeners. We want every child to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to communicate effectively and to access the full breadth of the curriculum.

Our aims are:

to enable children to read with accuracy, fluency, confidence and understanding, using appropriate strategies to become increasingly independent readers;
to foster a lifelong love of reading, enabling children to read widely and regularly for both pleasure and purpose;
to develop confident and independent readers through the systematic teaching of word reading, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension;
to expose children to a rich, diverse and ambitious range of texts, authors, genres and literary traditions that broaden their knowledge, experiences and understanding of the world;
to develop children’s vocabulary and language so that they can understand, discuss and communicate increasingly complex ideas;
to enable children to write clearly, accurately and coherently for a range of purposes, audiences and contexts across both fiction and non-fiction;
to develop children’s understanding and application of spelling, grammar, punctuation and handwriting, enabling them to communicate meaning accurately and effectively;
to teach children to plan, draft, evaluate, edit and improve their writing, developing increasing independence and ownership of the writing process;
to ensure children can apply their reading, writing and communication skills across the wider curriculum, recognising literacy as fundamental to learning;
to develop children as confident and articulate speakers who can communicate clearly and appropriately for different audiences and purposes;
to develop children’s ability to listen attentively, respond thoughtfully, ask questions and identify and summarise key information;
to enable children to adapt their spoken language, vocabulary and communication appropriately for different contexts, audiences and situations;
to provide purposeful opportunities for discussion, debate, presentation, performance and drama, enabling children to explore ideas and develop confidence;
to encourage children to reflect upon, evaluate and build on their own and others’ contributions to discussions; and
to ensure that every child develops the English knowledge and skills required for success in secondary education and later life.

Through high expectations, carefully sequenced teaching and a language-rich curriculum, we aim to ensure that all children leave Roseberry Primary School as confident communicators who can read, write, speak and listen with accuracy, understanding and purpose.

Reading at Roseberry Primary School

At Roseberry Primary School, we believe that reading is fundamental to every child’s education and is the gateway to learning across the curriculum. We are committed to developing confident, fluent and enthusiastic readers who read successfully for both purpose and pleasure.

Reading is a key priority throughout our school. Every child has regular opportunities to engage with high-quality, carefully selected texts that broaden their experiences, develop their knowledge and vocabulary, and foster a lifelong love of reading.

Our reading curriculum is carefully sequenced from Nursery through to Year 6, ensuring that children progressively develop the knowledge and skills they need to become successful readers. This includes secure word recognition, increasing fluency, a rich and varied vocabulary, strong comprehension skills and the confidence to engage with an increasingly ambitious range of texts.

Our approach to reading is built around three complementary elements:

Early Reading and Phonics – establishing the foundations children need to decode accurately and read with increasing fluency.
Whole Class Reading – explicitly developing fluency, vocabulary and comprehension through high-quality, challenging texts.
Reading for Pleasure – creating a strong reading culture in which children are encouraged to discover authors, genres and texts that inspire them.

Reading also extends beyond dedicated reading lessons. Meaningful opportunities to read are deliberately embedded across the wider curriculum, enabling children to build background knowledge, encounter subject-specific vocabulary and use reading as a tool for learning.

Through this coherent approach, our ambition is for every child at Roseberry Primary School to leave us as a fluent, confident and motivated reader, equipped with the reading knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the next stage of their education and beyond.

Reading in Year 1

Alongside daily Read Write Inc. Phonics teaching, children in Year 1 participate in five whole-class reading sessions each week. These sessions complement their phonics teaching by broadening children’s vocabulary, comprehension, background knowledge and experience of high-quality texts.

Each weekly text is carefully selected and explored through a structured sequence that supports children to become increasingly fluent, thoughtful and confident readers.

Day 1 – Building Background Knowledge

Children are prepared to access and understand the text by:

activating relevant prior knowledge;
introducing and exploring key vocabulary;
explicitly addressing potential barriers to understanding;
making connections with previous learning and experiences; and
exploring the context, purpose and author of the text.

Day 2 – Developing Fluency

Children develop accurate, expressive and increasingly automatic reading through:

teacher modelling;
echo reading;
choral reading;
partner reading;
repeated reading; and
developing appropriate expression, phrasing and prosody.

Day 3 – Reading Closely

Children explore carefully selected sections of the text in greater depth by:

retrieving key information;
exploring vocabulary in context;
identifying important details;
making observations and connections; and
discussing the author’s choice of words and language.

Day 4 – Developing Understanding

Children respond to increasingly challenging questions and discussion prompts designed to develop:

vocabulary;
retrieval;
inference;
prediction;
sequencing; and
understanding of the author’s choices and intentions.

Day 5 – Applying Understanding

Children apply and demonstrate what they have learnt about the text. Activities provide opportunities to:

respond independently to questions;
explain and justify answers using evidence from the text;
summarise and sequence key information;
make connections across the text and with previous learning; and
discuss and reflect upon the text as a whole.

Throughout Year 1, Read Write Inc. remains the core programme for teaching children to decode. Whole-class reading complements, rather than replaces, systematic phonics teaching and gives children access to language, ideas and texts beyond those they can yet read independently.

Reading in Year 2

In Year 2, children continue with Read Write Inc. Phonics for as long as they need it, ensuring that every child develops secure decoding skills and increasing reading fluency.

Children who have successfully completed the Read Write Inc. programme move towards a greater emphasis on fluency and comprehension, with structured opportunities for repeated reading. This develops automatic word recognition, accuracy, appropriate expression and reading stamina.

As children become increasingly fluent, less cognitive attention is required for decoding, enabling them to devote more attention to understanding, interpreting and responding to what they read.

Children also participate in five whole-class reading sessions each week, encountering an ambitious range of high-quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry, including texts that complement and extend learning across the wider curriculum.

Reading teaching progressively develops children’s ability to:

understand and use increasingly ambitious vocabulary;
retrieve and record information;
make and justify inferences using evidence from the text;
make sensible predictions based on what they have read;
sequence and summarise key information;
discuss how authors use vocabulary and language to create meaning and effect;
identify and discuss themes, ideas and patterns;
make connections and comparisons between texts; and
explain and justify their ideas through purposeful discussion.

Children who are not yet secure readers continue to receive targeted Read Write Inc. teaching and additional practice, ensuring that gaps in phonic knowledge and fluency are addressed rapidly while they continue to access the rich vocabulary, knowledge and comprehension opportunities provided through whole-class reading.

Reading in Key Stage 2

All pupils participate in five dedicated reading lessons each week.

Reading lessons are separate from, but closely linked to, English writing lessons and are based around carefully chosen high-quality class texts.

Each week's learning centres on a selected extract, enabling pupils to read deeply rather than quickly.

Lessons follow a consistent structure to develop both fluency and comprehension.

Each lesson includes:

Activating background knowledge
Explicit vocabulary instruction
Teacher modelling of fluent reading
Echo reading
Choral reading
Partner reading
Independent reading
Explicit modelling of comprehension using teacher "think alouds"
Guided practice
Independent application

This approach ensures pupils repeatedly hear expert reading before practising themselves, supporting both accuracy and prosody.

Writing at Roseberry Primary School

At Roseberry Primary School, writing is taught every day and is rooted in high-quality texts, ambitious vocabulary and meaningful curriculum experiences. Children are given purposeful opportunities to write for a wide range of audiences, purposes and contexts.

Our writing curriculum is carefully sequenced from the Early Years through to Year 6, ensuring that children progressively build the knowledge and skills needed to become confident, accurate and increasingly sophisticated writers.

Through explicit teaching, modelling, purposeful practice and opportunities to plan, draft, edit and improve, children learn to make deliberate choices about vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation and text organisation.

Our ambition is for every child to leave Roseberry Primary School able to write fluently, accurately and with confidence, adapting their writing effectively for different purposes and audiences.