English

English Curriculum

At Poplar Farm School, we want every child to leave school with a love and respect for books. Our aim is for every child to become a fluent and expressive reader, who access books regularly for both pleasure and to acquire new knowledge. We want all children to use their experiences of books, to become competent, confident and creative writers. Our aim is for all children to reach age related expectations or make accelerated progress from their starting point. We hope that the children’s enthusiasm for reading and writing continues beyond their time at Poplar Farm School, and throughout their life.

Reading Intent

The aims of teaching reading in our school are to develop pupils who:

• Have the phonetic knowledge and skills, to be able to read systematically and with fluency.
• Be enthusiastic readers, who strive to progress to a higher level of reading material.
• Read often, both fiction and non-fiction books, from a range of genres, and discover particular favourites.
• Show respect and care for books.
• Enhance their vocabulary through reading, and apply it within their writing.
• Develop their reading in all subjects to support their acquisition of knowledge.
• Have a love of reading and share this with others, discussing what they have read.
• Read for pleasure both at home and school on a regular basis.
• Through their reading, develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually.
• Develop good comprehension; drawing from their linguistic knowledge.
• Know a range of authors, and discover personal favourites.
• Find inspiration from books and use them to influence their writing.
• Feel part of community, who share a common interest in reading.

Writing Intent

At Poplar Farm School, we believe that English skills are vital to our children’s development and future. Our broad and balanced English programme uses objectives from the National Curriculum, determining the skills that each year group and Key Stage must cover. Our writing curriculum aims to develop ambitious and articulate authors through the promotion of a range of authorial styles and genres.  

The aims of teaching writing in our school are to develop pupils who:

• Show high levels of achievement, the ability to problem solve, and exhibit positive attitudes towards writing.
• Show their open-mindedness and curiosity by using and understanding the English language as speakers, readers and writers.
• Develop their resilience, confidence and independence when using a range of vocabulary in their writing.
• Have an awareness of different audiences and purposes for writing, including writing to inform, writing to discuss, writing to entertain and writing to persuade.
• Apply their grammatical knowledge in their writing.
• Apply their phonetical and spelling knowledge in their writing.
• Apply these writing skills in all areas of the curriculum.
• Have high standards of presentation in their writing, in accordance with the school’s handwriting policy.