Aldbury Primary and Nursery School English Curriculum

Intent

Our aim is for pupils to become fluent readers, writers, and communicators, equipping them with the skills to thrive in the real world. We foster a love of reading that extends beyond the classroom, encouraging children to read widely and for pleasure. Our carefully chosen texts reflect a broad range of interests and subjects, ensuring that all areas of the curriculum are enriched by quality literature.

Respect is embedded in our approach, as we encourage pupils to appreciate diverse perspectives through the texts they read and the ideas they express. Responsibility is nurtured through high expectations for written work, as children learn to take ownership of their learning, develop independence, and take pride in their presentation. Through our creative curriculum, reading and quality literature are interwoven to expose pupils to various genres, enabling them to build a rich vocabulary and communicate effectively.

We adopt a multifaceted approach to writing, ensuring that all subject areas provide opportunities for pupils to express their thoughts in a range of styles. By revisiting genres, we support pupils’ long-term memory and help them develop confidence in their writing. Through collaboration and discussion, we promote friendship, encouraging children to support one another in developing their speaking and listening skills.

Our curriculum is designed to meet the needs of all pupils, enabling them to reach their full potential as respectful, responsible, and articulate learners.

Reading 

We want to inspire children to become lifelong readers and experience a range of authors, genres and texts. To support independent reading skills, we have a progressive reading scheme that provides age related high quality individual readers for all children in KS1 and KS2. These books are carefully matched to children's phonic knowledge and regular assessments are undertaken using Little Wandle or Running Records in KS2. To inspire reading for pleasure, children also take home a school library book or borrow a book from the Reading Road Map initiative.

We follow Big Cat Collins whole school programme.

More information can be found in the reading section at the bottom of the page. 

Phonics: Little Wandle

As a school we teach phonics using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.

Little Wandle draws on the latest research into how children learn best; how to ensure learning stays in children’s long term memory and how best to enable children to apply their learning to become highly competent readers.

Please see the phonics section at the bottom of the page for more information. 

Handwriting

Children are taught the Nelson handwriting approach and have handwriting sessions planned throughout the week to practise letter formation, sizing and legibility. We make sure that handwriting is a focus as soon as children begin to learn phonics in the Reception year. Handwriting is taught seperatly from the Little Wandle phonics sessions. Each classroom displays the letter or join of the week.

Please see the writing section below.

Spelling

Spelling is an integral part of being a fluent and competent writer. After phonics has been mastered, children in each class have daily spelling sessions to enhance their spelling knowledge. 

Please find more information in the spelling section below.

For more information about the English curriculum please see the English intent within this section of the website. 

Miss Vardy- English Subject Leader

Examples of learning