English at Lady Boswell's

Our English Curriculum is made up of a number of vital elements in developing our children's literacy skills:

Developing Phonological Awareness (Phonics)

Reading

Writing

Handwriting

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (sometimes referred to as SPaG)

Speaking and Listening

Phonics

As children join the School, they develop their reading skills through a scheme entitled 'Little Wandle’.  This is the Department for Education validated phonics scheme which has revised our previous ‘Letters and Sounds’ Programme and ensures that high quality phonics provision is delivered.  Our scheme is closely linked to matching phonically decodable reading books. 

Please click on the link below to hear EYFS lead, Miss Wyatt, explain how the 'Little Wandle' scheme is applied. 

Reading at Lady Boswell's

Our Reading curriculum is designed to foster a deep love of literature, exposing pupils to high-quality texts and developing their language and literature skills to the highest standard. We aim to develop fluent readers who can confidently decode words and comprehend texts, building a solid foundation for learning across all areas of the curriculum. Through building oracy and providing rich language experiences, we empower children to build an expansive vocabulary and become articulate communicators, effective collaborators and thoughtful leaders, who are inspired by the world around them. We intend for our pupils to use the ‘world of books’ to broaden their horizons and experience the true diversity of places and people further from home. Our Reading Curriculum seeks to spark our pupils’ curiosity, creativity and imaginations, nurturing a lifelong love of books and a desire to explore new ideas and concepts. We strive for academic excellence, ensuring every child achieves their full potential, is well-prepared for their future learning journey and can positively contribute to wider society.

Writing

As a school that prides itself on our high literacy standards, we recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, can write clearly and accurately and adapt their language and style for a range of contexts and we endeavour to create a love for literacy. Learning to write, like learning to read, is a journey from dependence to independence, and we believe that attainment in writing is intrinsically linked to the reading culture of our school.

Our Writing curriculum is designed to inspire, prepare and equip our pupils to use the power of words to express themselves, bring creative ideas to life, share diverse perspectives and to write with purpose, empathy and integrity. By developing transcriptional fluency, we aim for our pupils to show commitment to achieving high standards and attention to detail, whilst focusing on the content and communication of their ideas across all areas of the curriculum.  By providing rich, inspiring and contextual learning experiences, pupils will develop an expansive vocabulary and obtain the skills to become confident and effective communicators, understanding and believing that their words—on paper and beyond—can make a positive and meaningful impact on the wider world.

At Lady Boswell’s we deliver the ‘Composition’ and ‘Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation’ (VG&P) elements of the Writing National curriculum through a bespoke teaching approach, incorporating elements of  Jane Considine’s ’The Write Stuff’ (e.g. ‘class chottings’, ‘writing rainbow lenses’ and ‘shapes’). Writing is taught through genres, which are progressively mapped across the school. Our progressive Lady Boswell’s grammar curriculum is taught both contextually through these writing genres, and via discrete lessons (see year-group planning documents). 
The ‘Transcription’ elements of the Writing National Curriculum (Spelling and Handwriting) are taught through discrete scheme-based lessons.
Spelling inputs are daily using Little Wandle (Yr 2) and Spelling Shed (Yrs 3-6).  Handwriting inputs are weekly at a minimum using the Little Wandle/Nelson approaches in EYFS and Nelson across the remainder of the school.  Full details of our handwriting policy can be seen below.