Through our rich English curriculum, the staff are committed to empowering our pupils to become confident, independent and effective speakers, listeners, readers and writers.
Reading
Reading for pleasure is a priority throughout our school and along with the fantastic support at home, from the parents and carers, we are dedicated to encouraging our pupils to develop their own identity as readers, to become excited about selecting their own books based on their preferences and interests, to become inquisitive and ask questions about what they read and to use reading as a means of realising that the world around them is full of new, exciting and endless possibilities. All pupils at St. Dunstan’s have access to high-quality and engaging class libraries, where they are exposed to a wide and diverse range of books, authors and styles of texts.
Guided reading at St Dunstan’s focuses strongly on modelling and teaching the essential skills children require in order to become successful readers. These skills are taught through a variety of high-quality extracts and texts, where the children explore characters, settings, language and authorial intent. Often, our inspiring guided reading programme links to the year group’s topic, such as Geography, History and Science topics, however, each year group will also have opportunities to carry out author studies, explore songs from musicals, appreciate children’s classics, read and perform poetry, enjoy picture books and much more - exposing them to over 600 great authors.
Guided reading at St Dunstan’s focuses strongly on modelling and teaching the essential skills children require in order to become successful readers. These skills are taught through a variety of high-quality extracts and texts, where the children explore characters, settings, language and authorial intent. Often, our inspiring guided reading programme links to the year group’s topic, such as Geography, History and Science topics, however, each year group will also have opportunities to carry out author studies, explore songs from musicals, appreciate children’s classics, read and perform poetry, enjoy picture books and much more - exposing them to over 600 great authors.
Writing
We are a school that adopts The Write Stuff approach to writing. The Write Stuff is not a scheme, it is a way to liberate the children so that they have a complete set of tools and structures that can be applied to their writing in all contexts. The system arms both teachers and pupils with the knowledge and understating of what to write and how to write. Grammar, writing techniques and ideas are embedded in every single lesson, and revisited again and again to ensure that pupils become confident and adept writers.
Writing produced by the children in each class is linked to their topic and is rooted in a high quality text that they read as a whole class. This helps to foster a deeper understanding of the topic and exposes pupils to different genres and authors, encouraging them to empathise with characters and express themselves creatively and imaginatively.
By doing this, we can encourage pupils to become excited about writing for a range of purposes and audiences. As always, expectations of the children remains high throughout the school, and all achievements in writing, effort, creativity and presentation, are celebrated inside and outside of the classroom, including displaying work regularly on our school’s Writing Wall.
Writing produced by the children in each class is linked to their topic and is rooted in a high quality text that they read as a whole class. This helps to foster a deeper understanding of the topic and exposes pupils to different genres and authors, encouraging them to empathise with characters and express themselves creatively and imaginatively.
By doing this, we can encourage pupils to become excited about writing for a range of purposes and audiences. As always, expectations of the children remains high throughout the school, and all achievements in writing, effort, creativity and presentation, are celebrated inside and outside of the classroom, including displaying work regularly on our school’s Writing Wall.
Speaking and Listening
Through our engaging and exciting curriculum, there are many opportunities for children to develop their ability to use language in order to communicate their ideas, views and feelings in a variety of different ways, including enabling children to express themselves creatively and imaginatively. We aim to provide a language-rich environment that is stimulating and characterised by high expectations of success.
