English

Welcome to English at Baxenden St John’s! I am Mrs Crighton, leader of English, and I am highly passionate about providing a broad, balanced and thoroughly engaging English curriculum.

English Intent at Baxenden St John’s

At Baxenden St John’s, we strive for children to be ‘Primary Literate Pupils’, able to read, write and speak fluently and confidently in order to express themselves as fully as members of society. Our children develop the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness, so that they can achieve a strong command of the English language and how to both manipulate and enjoy it. We provide a high-quality English curriculum which cultivates a passion and enthusiasm for reading, writing and exploring and experimenting with vocabulary and a range of literature.

By the age of 11, we aim for our children to be able to:
• Read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding, orchestrating a range of independent strategies to self-monitor and correct.
• Have a high interest in books and read for pleasure
• Have an interest in words, their meanings; developing a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms.
• Understand a range of text types and genres – be able to write in a variety of styles and forms appropriate to the situation.
• Be developing the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.
• Have a suitable technical vocabulary to articulate their responses.

Reading

Reading at Baxenden is high-priority. Children are exposed to a range of reading activities at school: guided reading daily, shared class reading, independent reading and modelled reading. In addition to this, they are expected to read at home during the week.

Each class has a designated reading area, which is updated regularly and used to promote a love of reading. We include reading recommendations and activities to take part in and many of the books we study in Guided Reading are added to our class libraries for the children to read for pleasure.

Phonics and Spelling

Children in Reception and Key Stage 1 follow the synthetics phonics approach, using the ‘Letters and Sounds’ programme. It is an approach to teaching phonics in which individual letter or letter sounds are blended to form groups of letters or sounds, and those groups are then blended to form complete words.

Our daily phonics sessions involve lots of speaking and listening activities and games. The emphasis is on children’s active participation. The children learn to use their phonics knowledge for reading and writing activities – these are developed and reinforced in their independent work and play.

In Key Stage 2, spelling is taught daily as a whole class. Children are encouraged to use a range of strategies to learn their spelling patterns.

Handwriting

Handwriting is a key means of communication. At Baxenden St John’s, we believe that handwriting can be an art form, an expression of personality and a way of producing work to be proud of. Handwriting is taught, enforced and praised throughout the school week.