English | Brierley Hill Primary School

Welcome to our English page, here you will find all the exciting things that have been happening in our English curriculum and the amazing work that the children have been producing!!

Our English Vision Statement:

At Brierley Hill Primary School, we believe that English is the building block to success, a foundation that all other areas are built upon. We aim to encourage a life-long love of language and communication by bringing alive learning for our children; to inspire and evoke excitement allowing them to be immersed in a language rich environment that instils enthusiasm and is inclusive and diverse, enabling all children to grow a love of reading and encouraging them to become independent writer.

EYFS

We provide a strong foundation to all aspects of English in both Nursery and Reception. Children are immediately exposed and surrounded by a language rich environment that allows them to expand their vocabulary. Phonics is a key element of EYFS, introducing sounds and letters to the children, moving on to word building and developing their understanding of words. This is taught through Ruth Miskin phonics, which builds up the children’s knowledge of sounds and how these fit together to begin to form words. We also begin to instil a love of storytelling, using familiar rhymes, which the children can become immersed within. Children are also encouraged to express themselves through mark making and then re-tell what they have written, relating the written word to its meaning. Image result for phonics clip art

Key Stage 1

In Key Stage 1, phonics continues to be a big part of the English journey, bringing together new sounds, which open up whole new stories for the children to be able to read independently. Through our Ruth Miskin approach, children become confident in linking their sounds with the written word, experiment with challenging words and are encouraged to begin to think about what makes up a sentence. Moving into Year 2, children become confident in all sounds and move onto our Literacy and Language programme, looking at vocabulary rich texts and concentrating on grammatical techniques, along with how we build up a story. Image result for reading clip art

In Key Stage 1, an emphasis is put on reading and comprehension skills, all children take part in guided reading sessions daily, aiming to help them begin to understand and question different styles of text.

Spelling in Key Stage 1 is taught in conjunction with phonics, investigating how sounds join together, to create words with different meanings. In Year 2 we move into the spelling zone, focussing on spelling rules, using our phonic sounds in order to spell unfamiliar words.

Key Stage 2

English in Key Stage 2 continues to explore the language rich texts in our Literacy and Language programme, challenging children with new grammatical skills to master and exploring many different styles of text and writing. Emphasis, in Key Stage 2, is put on writing with an audience in mind, using grammatical structure and developing themselves as an independent writer. Children are encouraged to take pride and ownership in their work, taking risks and growing a love of being a writer. Guided reading sessions are also an integral part of Key Stage 2, ensuring that children have opportunities to explore how a text is constructed and why different techniques are used. We want to create learners who are not scared to question what they are reading and to be willing to challenge it: taking on a conferencing approach to our guided reading sessions. We also hope to instil a love of learning by giving the children time to just enjoy reading!

Spelling is again continued through the spelling zone, investigating those tricky spelling rules and learning the skills needed to apply these to all spellings.

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At Brierley Hill, our children are encouraged to learn, to question, to investigate and to enjoy all aspects of English, taking with them the skills that they need in order to achieve in all other aspects of the curriculum.

See our writing Bloom at Brierley Hill Primary school!

Inspired by the recent Christmas TV Advert 'Edgar the Excitable Dragon' we undertook a whole school challenge, to produce a piece of writing inspired by our excitable dragon. All the children were enthralled with his adventures and the work they produced was stunning.