ENGLISH
English at Essendon Primary School is one of the cornerstones of our entire curriculum. We want all children to be excellent communicators, to listen actively and to speak with confidence. High-quality texts are placed at the heart of all we do and are used as key drivers for our topic based learning. These high-quality texts are embedded across our learning to immerse our children in a vocabulary rich environment.
Early Reading & Phonics
Writing
Phonics is an integral part of our daily teaching in Early Years and Key Stage One. As of Spring 2022 the synthetic phonics scheme that we is 'Little Wandle'. Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised draws on the latest research into how children learn best; how to ensure learning stays in children’s long term memory and how best to enable children to apply their learning to become highly competent readers.
Have a look at Little Wandle - information for parents - Little Wandle Letters and Sounds
Early Reading and Phonics Policy
At Essendon, writing has a high profile in the curriculum and opportunities for writing are frequent and varied. Writing forms a key part of all subjects across the curriculum, with all children get the opportunity to write for a extended periods each week. We use a clear learning sequence when writing. We use our model text as the starting point to engage, exemplify and practice skills before progressing into extended writing episodes; this includes opportunities for drafting, editing and publishing writing.
Reading
Essendon prides itself on being a reading school. This is supported by high quality texts running through our termly topics, 'Drop Everything And Read' sessions and a key-stage two reading scheme using the Oxford Reading Tree. We support our children's reading development by giving them a reading scheme reading book as well as a 'free reader' book for enjoyment. These come from our class libraries and topic boxes, which are available to all children. In class, comprehension skills are developed weekly using reading VIPERS, focusing on the key skills of reading.