Crow Lane Primary And Foundation Stage School

English

At Crow Lane, we aim to embed a genuine love of literacy in children and their families, by immersing them in a literary rich environment and delivering a meaningful and motivating curriculum.  We aim for all our children to be able to speak accurately and confidently, and listen to, understand, question and learn. We aim to inspire children’s appreciation of a rich and varied literary heritage and embed a life-long love of reading. We want every child to be able to read and write at a level which prepares them for their next stage of education, and gives them a secure footing as life-long leaners, to access, interpret and make sense of the world around them. 

We have tailored a rigorous, meaningful and well organised progressive English curriculum, which provides purposeful opportunities for speaking and listening, reading and writing.

Phonics and Reading

Reading is at the heart of everything we do. In the Foundation Stage and Year 1, the teaching of reading is centred around phonics and decoding, as this underpins everything and provides a solid foundation on which children build the necessary skills needed to be competent and confident readers. Our rich choice of texts provide engaging learning opportunities and promote quality outcomes. They make our children laugh, cry, applaud and make real connections with the world. Our enthusiastic and passionate staff continually promote a love of reading, at home, in the classroom and throughout school.

At Crow Lane we teach phonics daily to the whole class, alongside some smaller booster sessions. We follow the Letters & Sounds programme throughout school, which is delivered through LCP planning. This has been tailored for our children and follows a clear progression from the day they start in our Reception class.

Throughout school we use a book-based approach to planning and teaching English lessons. We make clear links with other areas of the curriculum and constantly transfer our English skills into the wider curriculum. We use Power of Reading texts and structures, alongside Pie Corbett’s Talk for Writing techniques.

We use the Bug Club progressive reading scheme from Reception to Year 6, with early books matched to children’s phonic ability. We provide a wide range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays. We also offer a wider range of home readers matched to class reading bands and a range of high-low reading books. Our school has a well-resourced and child led library, which our children visit and select from each week. We also offer access to a range of audio books and e-books through home reading links. 

Writing

Inspired by literature, current affairs or purposefully linked to topic learning, pupils learn the skills necessary to communicate their ideas in written form. We place importance on developing clear, legible handwriting, accurate spelling and the correct use of grammatical conventions. Our focus on speaking and listening means we build and develop ideas and use shared writing to provide structure and clear models in a safe and encouraging way.