English
At Pelham, we want all pupils to:
- Foster a lifelong love of reading.
- Through their reading, have the opportunity to explore new ideas, visit new places, meet new characters and develop a better understanding of other cultures.
- Read for pleasure and with fluency.
- Be confident, fluent and competent readers.
- Build up their vocabulary, giving them the word power they need to become successful speakers and writers as well as confident readers.
- Develop a love of language and a rich vocabulary.
- See themselves as 'real writers' from the beginning, able to produce meaningful and useful work in a variety of different situations.
- Embed their writing skills across the curriculum.
- Communicate effectively in writing, and enjoy being able to express themselves in this way.
We will do this by:
- Following the 'Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised' phonics scheme of work.
- Exploring a variety of different books in our Guided Reading and English sessions.
- Sharing a class reader.
- Visiting the school library every week.
- Modelling writing through the use of WAGOLLs (What A Good One Looks Like) and whole class shared writing.
- Dedicating lesson time to punctuation and grammar.
- Using the Spelling Shed scheme of work.
- Implementing different teaching strategies such as oracy, drama, immersion, peer and self-evaluation.
- Ensuring that children have purposeful opportunities to write for identified audiences.
- Undertaking the drafting and editing process.
- Delivering units of fiction, non-fiction and poetry each term through inspiring stimuli including text, film and imagery.
- Teaching handwriting from letter formation to cursive script.
- Celebrating writing through Pelham's Pulitzer Prize for Progress.
Spelling at Pelham
At Pelham, spelling is taught in a clear, systematic way, with regular assessments, using one of two Schemes of Work.
Little Wandle
When your child enters Nursery, they are at the beginning of their journey to becoming a fluent, skilled reader and successful, confident speller. At Pelham, we follow the evidence based phonics programme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Scheme, through which children learn their letter sounds. Embedded within this programme are opportunities for the children to revisit, revise and consolidate their learning.
From the Spring term, staff in Year One begin to complement the learning the children do in Little Wandle by introducing Spelling Shed as an additional tool. This supports Year 1 children in working towards beginning to be able to spell some words in a phonically plausible way, as set out in the National Curriculum Notes and Guidance for this year group.
For those children who need additional support to consolidate their learning, we revisit the letter sounds daily in small morning groups in Year 2, and also use the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up, to deliver targeted interventions from Year 3 onwards.
Click on the link below to access parent guidance for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised:
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds
Spelling Shed
In Year Two, there is one term of consolidating Little Wandle phonics sounds before they join Years 3 to 6 in following the Spelling Shed Scheme of Work.
Spelling Shed helps children develop their language skills, so they learn HOW to spell, not just a list of words. This supports the children in being strong spellers, with the confidence to write across all subjects, encourages creativity, because it frees pupils to focus on ideas and vocabulary rather than word formation, and also ensures written communication is easily understood.
To find the slides from our recent Spelling Workshop, please click here.
Curriculum Guidance
Click on the link below for an overview of the English Curriculum.
Click on any of the links below for English Curriculum guides:
A Writer at Pelham - Skills progression through the year groups
A Reader at Pelham - Skills progression through the year groups
See reference to the National Curriculum subject guidance: