At Hawthorn Community Primary School, we believe that a quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and speaking and listening. We have a rigorous and well-organised phonics, reading and writing curriculum that provides many purposeful opportunities for children to become skilled across all areas of English. Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum for English (2014) to enable all children to:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding;

• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information; 

• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language;

• appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage;

• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences;

• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas;

• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

These aims are embedded across our English lessons and throughout the wider curriculum, which includes many opportunities for reading and writing. We will provide the means for children to develop a secure knowledge base in Literacy, which follows a clear pathway of progression as they advance through the primary curriculum. Rigorous assessment and review, alongside current research, will ensure that we are able to provide effective, targeted support so that all children experience success in literacy; we believe that a secure basis in literacy skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to succeed not only in their education but also in later life.

Reading

At Hawthorn, we believe that every pupil has the right to learn to read and to gain pleasure from their reading experiences.

By the time children leave our school at the end of Year 6, they will have been exposed to a plethora of high-quality texts (including fiction, non-fiction and poetry) across the whole curriculum.  These texts develop in complexity, and a reading spine shows how the complexity in texts evolves.  

A Hawthorn reader is able to choose books suited to their interest level and is able to talk in detail about the contents, themes and characters within their book.  A Hawthorn reader is able to recommend books to their friends justifying their reasons.  All adults at Hawthorn are passionate about reading, and all adults engage regularly in book talk with the pupils as well as being able to recommend books of interest.

By being a successful reader, pupils at Hawthorn develop respect and thoughtfulness for others through the characters and plots they encounter in their books.  They develop their teamwork skills by collaborating and sharing their views about books.  A Hawthorn reader develops their own resilience by asking questions about the books they read and monitoring their own understanding of the texts they choose. 

By the time children leave in Year 6, they will be accomplished in terms of comprehending deeper meanings and inference within books.  They will have e completed the programme of study set out in the National Curriculum.  Children will have the skills they need to take part in the end of KS2 tests; however, emphasis will always be placed upon reading for pleasure.

Writing

At Hawthorn, pupils develop a love of writing, giving them the foundations to be competent, confident and fluent communicators. We have a robust curriculum, which builds on the knowledge and skills developed as pupils progress through the school.

Fundamental to becoming a Hawthorn writer, pupils are given the techniques to write for different purposes with a progressive grammar, spelling and punctuation foci threaded through the writing curriculum. Furthermore, writing is linked closely to reading so that pupils can use their reading experience to inform their written work.  

At Hawthorn, children take pride in their work and throughout the school, they are encouraged to complete final drafts of their work which they are proud of, demonstrating a high-regard for the work they have produced.

When Hawthorn pupils leave Year Six, they have confidence to take risks in their written work and are eager to refine this independently or collaboratively with peers.

Phonics

At Hawthorn, we value reading and phonics as life skills which hold the keys to the rest of the curriculum and have a direct impact on future life chances. This starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills so that by the end of Year 2, children can read fluently, enabling them to put all of their energy into comprehending what they read.

All children in EYFS and KS1 are taught daily phonics lessons using the Read Write Inc scheme. The scheme teaches all key elements of:

• conceptual understanding

• factual knowledge

• segmenting

• blending

• phoneme manipulation

Phonics lessons are engaging and fast-paced to ensure children’s learning moves rapidly, supporting them to read independently as soon as possible.

A detailed year by year English break-down can be found in the documents below.