Clarborough Primary School follows the National Curriculum for English, which aims to ensure that all pupils:
Reading
At Clarborough Primary School, we love reading. We strive to ensure that all children become successful and fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. We believe this is achievable through a combination of high quality, discrete phonics teaching combined with a literature-rich approach across the curriculum that promotes a ‘reading for pleasure’ culture. We aim for all of the children at Clarborough Primary School to leave school at the end of Key Stage 2 with a genuine passion for reading and to have acquired all of the skills they need to enjoy and understand a variety of texts and genres.
Reading is taught regularly through daily phonics sessions and guided reading lessons, using fiction, non-fiction and poetry across the curriculum.
In the Early Years, pupils are introduced to a variety of high quality texts and will be given a book banded reading book to take home, alongside a Sharing Book to share with an adult. In Key Stage 1, pupils reading books are banded and closely matched to their phonics ability. They may also choose a variety of texts from our school library. In Key Stage 2, Accelerated Reader is used to support children in finding their appropriate reading range; books are chosen from the library and can be quizzed online.
Writing
At Clarborough Primary School, we believe that writing is the ability to effectively communicate ideas, information and opinions through the printed word, in a wide range of contexts and across all curriculum areas. The ability to write is fundamental to pupils' development as independent learners. We believe that writing should be both inspiring yet challenging in enabling our pupils to become motivated and adept writers in any given situation.
Initially children are taught the skills to communicate their ideas, to make meaningful marks and develop their fine motor skills and control. Children continue to develop skills in their presentation of writing and of their ideas through writing.
Children develop skills in understanding the purpose of the writing, the intended audience, and how this impacts on the nature of the writing content and style. They develop skills in communicating their ideas with increasing awareness of the audience and skills in manipulating the style and content for its impact on the reader - writing for a variety of reasons, in a variety of styles and editing and improving their own and others’ writing. They are taught to use skills and ideas from their reading of high quality texts to help craft their own written work. Alongside this, skills are taught to assist children in developing their grammar and punctuation through the use of Rainbow Grammar. Spellings are taught using phonics in Early Years and Year 1 and Spelling Shed from Year 2 onwards.