At Cranberry Academy, we believe that English is a fundamental life skill. English develops children’s ability to listen, speak, read, and write for a variety of purposes. Children are enabled to express themselves creatively and imaginatively as they become enthusiastic and critical readers of a wide range of genres. Children gain an understanding of how language works by looking at its patterns, structures, and origins. Children use their knowledge, skills and understanding in speaking and writing across a range of different situations. At Cranberry Academy, we teach English to all children, whatever their ability. We provide learning opportunities that are matched to the needs of children with learning difficulties and those with English as an additional language, as well as providing appropriate, challenging planned work for those children who are gifted and talented. Work in English takes into account, the targets set for the children in extended writing and daily lessons.
At Cranberry Academy, we want our children to be passionate readers and our role is to instil and nurture this love of reading for all our pupils. We want children to be able to confidently decode using phonics from an early age in order to become fluent and expressive readers. Children will also be able to understand and infer meaning from the books they read. Children will experience both fiction and non-fiction texts across many genres and will confidently share their reading preferences with others making reference to favourite authors, themes and characters. We have an extensive and exciting range of school, guided and home reading books for the children to read and a well-stocked library. Our aim is to provide books that are both stimulating and challenging that children care for, use and value. Through promoting great readers, children will understand the link between reading and writing and the two will entwine together not only in Literacy but across all other curriculum areas ensuring children have the reading ability to research and access information for other subjects.
At Cranberry Academy, we believe that all children should recognise the value of writing. By the end of KS2, all children must be able to write fluently- understanding the related rules and conventions. It is our aim to teach children to be able to write accurately and meaningfully for a range of fiction and non-fiction purposes. Through the pathways to write programme, children will acquire and learn the skills to plan, draft and edit their written work. Children will support each other within this process, responding critically to their own and to others’ writing. Handwriting, spelling and grammar will be explicitly taught to ensure that children are able to understand the conventions of writing and manipulate language to create effects for the reader. Children will eventually learn joined script and will present their writing in variety of ways for both Literacy lessons and the wider curriculum. Children will be given opportunities to write creatively drawing on their reading knowledge and for a purpose making writing enjoyable and developing their individual styles and confidence as young writers.
This policy gives clear guidance to why and how we teach handwriting at Cranberry Academy. The focus on handwriting in the National Curriculum is clear and highlighting its importance in making the connection between a child’s handwriting, their writing composition and spelling ability. Children will use handwriting books and paper with the four-line system for positioning their letters writing in the middle lines with ascenders going up to the top line and descenders going down to the bottom line. Always encourage children to place their letters in the correct position on the single lined paper.
Here at Cranberry Academy we have designed our Phonics lessons to ensure they are fully inclusive to every child. Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the The National Curriculum and Development Matters Framework for reading and spelling; to ensure progressive development of comprehension and writing skills; and for the children to develop a love for reading. The systematic teaching of phonics has a high priority throughout Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. At Cranberry Academy, we value reading as a key life skill, and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers.