The teaching of English encompasses the teaching of speaking, listening, reading and writing skills and the use of drama. These skills are used in all areas of the curriculum.

Speaking and Listening

Children take part in a variety of situations and activities in which they will be taught how to discuss, perform, ask questions, tell stories, learn and recite poetry, share and present their ideas, and to be active listeners.

Reading

From Year R onwards, children are taught specific decoding skills including the use of phonics, recognition of common exception words (tricky words), and making links to known words in order to develop reading fluency. We mainly use Monster Phonics and Letters and Sounds. They are also taught to develop and demonstrate understanding of what they have read.

Children will experience a wide range of authors and text types during their time at Scantabout and will regularly hear books being read to them, in addition to reading for their own pleasure. We aim to foster a love of language and literature and an active use of our school library and class libraries is encouraged. The children bring books home to share and a Home School reading diary is used to develop dialogue about their progress, and for children to reflect on their reading.

All children are able to access an online reading scheme – Bug Club, which matches books to children’s abilities and which also provides teachers with the opportunity to monitor progress and give additional feedback. Many of the Bug Club texts are available for the children to read in school too.

The school’s reading scheme is Project X and is supplemented by Bug Club, Big Cat Phonics and Oxford Reading Tree. 

Writing

Children will be given opportunities to write for a variety of purposes and wherever possible real audiences using a range of writing forms such as: explanations, instructions, balanced arguments, stories and poems. They will learn to plan, draft, revise, edit and present their work, before evaluating the success of their writing. Feedback from the intended audience will be part of this process wherever possible.

Selecting grammar and punctuation to match writing purposes will be taught, with children developing their understanding or technical terms to be able to discuss and justify choices. Children will steadily build on their understanding of spelling patterns and rules across the school outlined in the National Curriculum.

Cursive script handwriting is taught across the school.

Drama

Drama forms part of the English and wider curriculum and aims to encourage self-confidence, imagination and empathy. It is used to stimulate, explore and challenge ideas.