At Griffe Field Primary School the study of English develops the children’s abilities to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of exciting purposes, including using language to learn and communicate their own ideas, views and feelings.
Our curriculum enables children to express themselves confidently, creatively and imaginatively, as they become enthusiastic and critical explorers of a wide range of genres: stories, poetry, letters, diaries and play-scripts, as well as a variety of non-fiction and media texts.
We use a systematic phonics approach for teaching early reading skills. These are developed through the use of Collins Big Cat for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds and Oxford Reading Tree, our core reading schemes, as well as, a variety of supplementary schemes. Little Wandle Letters and Sounds is the core phonics scheme taught at Griffe Field and children begin their early reading with Little Wandle phonically decodable reading books.
For more information about Phonics and Reading at Griffe Field, please click here.
Pupils gain an understanding of how language works by studying word, sentence and whole text patterns, structures and origins. Grammar is taught through the exploration of good quality texts. We have designed our own set of reading skill characters to help the children develop their comprehension skills.
Literacy is often the catalyst that sparks amazing topic work and other cross curricular activities. Visiting authors, poets, illustrators, librarians and theatre groups inspire our children to aim high; visits and visitors add a relevance and real life context to the pupil’s studies. We have Book Weeks where all classes carry out cross curricular work derived from the same quality text. The children are encouraged read for pleasure and to write for a wide range of purposes and audiences.
Our learning environment is “Literacy Rich” with a well-stocked library, outside reading areas, attractive class book corners, working genre walls, word banks and skills posters – to name but a few. Pupils are encouraged to develop pride in the presentation of their own work by following a structured, progressive handwriting program. Writing success is celebrated through display, competitions and star writer opportunities.
We encourage parents to become actively involved in their child’s literacy journey. Workshops are run to encourage quality home reading and writing experiences and skills are reinforced during weekly homework activities.
Mrs Rai and Miss Harris
English Subject Leaders
Below are links to websites, resources and activities that you may find useful at home.
Booktrust – 100 best books for children
Love Reading for Schools – Reading lists of quality texts for children linking to the curriculum.
DK Find Out! – An online encyclopaedia to support Teaching and Learning
