At Summercourt Academy we recognise the importance of the English language in preparing children to be confident in all aspects of their lives.
Our English intent is for all pupils to leave Summercourt Academy with a life-long reading habit and a love of books because reading will improve their vocabulary, inspire them creatively and improve their ability to write well.
We believe that improved performance in reading, writing and spoken language will enable our pupils to deal more successfully with other curriculum subjects, while enriching their lives beyond school. At Summercourt Academy we encourage all children to become independent learners and be confident in all strands of learning.
Our approach to teaching English incorporates oracy, drama, real contexts and high-quality texts, developing children’s vocabulary, language, reading and writing skills.
Our Aims
To ensure that all pupils:
- 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.
Suggested Reading Lists
Suggested reading list - year 1.pdf
Suggested reading list - year 2.pdf
Suggested reading list - year 3.pdf
Suggested reading list - year 4.pdf
Suggested reading list - year 5.pdf
Suggested reading list - year 6.pdf
In the EYFS children will learn to write letters using correct formation. They will learn to hold mark making tools, pencils and pens using a tripod grip. They will learn to spell words by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or groups of letters. Children will then progress to write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others.
Following our Summercourt approach for writing, KS1 (year 1 and 2) have opportunities to write for a range of purposes and audiences. They start with a model text (WAGOLL – ‘What a good one looks like…’) as an inspiration which they then deconstruct and analyse focussing on the key features of the genre (structure and language). After practicing specific SPAG skills modelled in the texts they then apply this knowledge later on when they plan their own writing following the structure of the model text. Pupils then write their first draft and finally, the pupils revise and improve their writing before showcasing their writing in their best handwriting. The photos below show examples of their published pieces.
During a writing unit in Class 3 (year 3 and 4) pupils explore the wonderful world of poetry. The pupils explore how using their senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing and smell can create fantastic inspiration for the content of a poem. They enjoy smelling and tasting a range of things before then using these experiences to craft amazing verses for a poem.
During a writing unit in Class 4, they had been writing newspaper reports, exploring the impact of invasions. The children worked hard to include a variety of SPaG features, including: relative clauses, alliteration, parenthesis and more. This piece of writing allowed them to show great creativity, as they are wrote about animals carrying out human activities. It has been wonderful to read their descriptions of the animals' appearances and their published work is incredible!
