English at College Town

 

“So Matilda’s strong, young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea.”   

Roald Dahl

 

English underpins all aspects of a child’s education, as speaking, listening, reading and writing skills are used across the curriculum and in all aspects of our lives. Good spoken language is a fundamental skill, as without it, reading and writing are compromised and limited. It is vital that children are given opportunities to engage in meaningful ways to develop these skills.

At the core of our English curriculum, we offer a wide range of high-quality texts for each year group to enjoy and study. Our overview has been centered on both classic, long-standing, books and novels as well as new and upcoming authors and texts. 

There is a wealth of research to show that one of the most effective ways to become a good writer is to be an avid reader; to unpick language from books and to use this as a model for producing quality writing.

 

We aim to immerse children in these quality texts, exploring the way the author uses language in order to develop our children as writers. As well as having a main outcome for each unit, children are exposed to different types of writing linked to the book, to give them opportunities to write for different audiences and purposes. Each book is used to develop vocabulary, grammar and punctuation skills and to explore the structure of writing across different genres.