At Whaplode, we believe all our children (from EYFS to Y6) are entitled to an ambitious, knowledge-rich English curriculum that ensures they will become fluent readers and writers who are able to confidently access the demands of the secondary school curriculum.

We believe that being able to communicate effectively and creatively is vital for all pupils, irrespective of ability or birth language. We aim to develop within pupils the ability to speak confidently with intonation and accurate grammar in order to express their thoughts and opinions. We encourage all learners to listen attentively to others, showing empathy and understanding whilst processing the information in order to ask questions and develop their own opinions.

Reading

Reading is key to all we do within our school and it is our intention to develop within each child, a life-long love of reading. We believe that our children should become fluent readers, who use this skill to further their own knowledge and deepen their understanding of what they have learnt. We wish for our children to experience a wide range of quality texts and authors, from classic literature to modern publications, in order to develop their own reading preferences. The teaching of early reading is a priority in the first years of school and children are provided with books which are closely matched to their phonic knowledge. Phonics teaching, using the Read, Write Inc phonic scheme, has a sharp focus with regular assessments used to identify gaps and next steps. Engaging texts are used as a driver across our Connections curriculum as a way of linking reading to all subjects.

Across the whole school, specific reading techniques are used to ensure that all children join in with reading aloud.  As well as group or whole class reading aloud, there are regular opportunities for children to ask and answer questions and write specific sentences about the passage of text they have just read. Teachers carefully select vocabulary to teach explicitly and implicitly from the text and children are given plentiful opportunities to pronounce the word and use it orally in a variety of contexts. We give children child-friendly definitions and do not promote guessing definitions. We run our reading lessons in this way in order to expose children to high-quality literature and develop their fluency and prosody, as well as to increase their vocabulary breadth and depth.

Writing

It is a vital for all our children to develop as effective writers, using a variety of methods to communicate their ideas. They should write for purpose and for a range of audiences, developing the skills of spelling and punctuation to create effective and interesting pieces of writing which engage the reader. We endeavour to provide our learners with a variety of experiences on which they can base their writing, linked throughout our ambitious and knowledge-rich curriculum. Children should have opportunities to publish their writing and share with wider audiences.