English Curriculum
It is our intention when teaching the English curriculum that our pupils acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and understanding to become lifelong learners and linguists. We strive to ensure that all our pupils receive a well-rounded learning experience when reading, writing, speaking and listening which will equip them with the fundamental tools to achieve in
Daily English lessons use the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach; children explore a wide variety of texts, analysing the grammatical features used and exploring the impact on the reader. They then use these texts as a stimulus for their own writing with time to plan, draft, proofread and edit before producing a final ‘hot write’ to showcase their independent writing skills.
Our 'Curriculum Essentials' document for writing sets out the genres through which we teach children to write in order to persuade, discuss, inform and entertain. You can find it here. Our 'Barnes Basics', which set out the elements of our writing cycle can also be seen, below:
Reading at Barnes
In addition to the daily English lessons, children are taught the explicit skills of reading through regular ‘Reading Workshop’ lessons. In these lessons, children are engaged in discussion around a quality novel, developing their skills of inference and deduction and taking part in activities to explore new vocabulary.
We value Reading for Pleasure at Barnes and take every opportunity to motivate and encourage our children to develop a love of books. Author events, reading challenges and assemblies help us to promote this. You can find our 'Barnes Basics' for reading workshops and our 'Reading Curriculum Roadmap', full of wonderful books, below.
If you have any questions regarding our English curriculum, please contact our English Lead, Mrs Stubbs, via the school office.
What will my child learn this year?
Years 3 and 4 Reading Essentials
