English
Subject Overview
At Cordwalles, we aim to deliver a knowledge-rich English curriculum that addresses the identified needs of the context of our school. With that in mind, our vision is to expose children to a wide range of high-quality texts which allow them to develop as strong readers and writers. We seek every opportunity to develop oracy, language and knowledge acquisition, writing skills and a love for reading within our school.
Teaching of English lessons is sequenced progressively throughout the school, as well as within each year group, to ensure prior learning is built upon and embedded into long-term memory. Teachers use a range of questioning skills, modelling and discussion to encourage children to unpick and understand texts, make links, build their knowledge and consider authorial intent.
Children’s confidence grows as they access a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts which make cross-curricular links to other subjects throughout each term. We encourage children to read throughout the school day within all subjects and every day, the children are read to by their class teacher, sharing a carefully chosen age-appropriate class reader text.
Alongside English lessons, we provide many opportunities for the children to develop their literacy skills throughout the school day. For children who may need additional support, we run daily small-group interventions. These may focus on reading comprehension skills, writing skills, pre-teaching of vocabulary, as well as spelling and handwriting intervention. Within ‘Early Morning Work’, teachers lead whole-class intervention which may focus on handwriting, spelling, comprehension skills, grammar etc. These sessions are led based on the teacher’s assessment of their class’ need at that time and are differentiated to ensure all children can access the curriculum and make progress.
Click Here to learn more about the English curriculum design at Cordwalles Junior School.
Reading at Cordwalles
At Cordwalles, we love to read! We are very fortunate to have a beautiful library which allows us a peaceful environment to choose books and read.
Accelerated Reader at Cordwalles
Accelerated Reader is a computer programme that will help to develop your child’s independent reading. It works in quite a simple way; your child will pick a book at their own level, and when finished will take a short quiz on the computer. If your child can pass a quiz about what they have read then this tells us that they have fully understood the content of their book.
All children in KS2 have recently undertaken a short reading test that has assigned them a reading band (or Z.P.D.). Your child will now be able to select a book from our library that falls within their Z.P.D. This reading band will guide your child towards choosing books at an appropriate reading level that are challenging without being frustrating. The aim is for them to pass the quiz and be successful.
All of our books in school have been newly labelled and put into colour bands that will further help guide your child in choosing a book. One of the best parts about using Accelerated Reader is that your child can choose their own books to read, rather than having one assigned to them. This will hopefully make reading a much more enjoyable experience as they can choose books that are interesting to them.
It is recommended that pupils spend between 15-20 minutes per day reading. Doing so can improve creativity, reading age, reading speed, spelling, punctuation, grammar and vocabulary.
Our Pets as Therapy Reading Dog
We are delighted to have registered for the Pets As Therapy READ 2 DOGS programme.
We would like to introduce Sheba and her owners Neil and Christine.
Sheba visits Cordwalles on Monday afternoons. These dogs are specially registered dogs who normally visit in hospitals, hospices, care homes etc.
The effects of Pets As Therapy dogs in schools has shown a range of benefits including:
• Reducing stress physiologically (Cortisol levels) and increase attachment responses that trigger Oxytocin – a hormone that increases trust in humans.
• Increase in school attendance.
• Gains in confidence.
• Decreases in learner anxiety behaviours resulting in improved learning outcomes, such as increases in reading and writing levels.
• Positive changes towards learning and improved motivation.
• Enhanced relationships with peers and teachers.
• Teaching empathy and appropriate interpersonal skills.
• Development of social skills.
World Book Day 2022
Cordwalles Junior School had a wonderful day celebrating 'World Book Day' on Thursday 3rd March 2022.
Click here to find out more!
Children's Book Project
We are fortunate to have had two donations to Cordwalles Junior School through the Childrens Book Project.
We would like to say a huge thank you to:
- Gordon's School
- Sir William Perkins's School
The parents and children of these schools have collected pre-loved books which have outgrown their homes and donated them to our school. These will be processed into our collection of books in the library for children to enjoy both at school and at home.
Click here to find out more!
