Reception 2025 Stay and Play Session and School Tours - Friday 25th October. This is an inset day for the rest of the school but please do come along and meet the team if your child is due to start Reception in September 2025.
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English

Our English curriculum
 
At Etwall, we love to read! We have even had a new library built for us to enjoy, full of exciting new books. 
 
When you start in Reception, you will learn to read and write using Phonics, and this will continue throughout Years One and Two, having lessons which are based on Little Wandle which we began using in May 2022. As well as phonics, you will read many different types of books, which will inspire you to write in your English lessons. 
 
In Years Three and Four, we build on your reading knowledge, moving onto building up reading skills with our friends, The Pawsome Gang. They will help you to do more than just decode the words, but also learn how to use inference, prediction and vocabulary skills. In the same way as in Years One and Two, we use high quality texts to inspire us to be ambitious writers. 
 
In Years Five and Six, we build on the skills from prior years, and once again use high quality texts to inspire our writing. We love to use our individual narrative voices to write creatively, as well as formally. The texts that we choose are ambitious, and we explore the writer's intent in detail. 
 
Throughout each year, we expect children to write with ambition, and to stretch their vocabulary. All lessons are linked to the topic we are working on, which means we are completely immersed in our learning.
 
In order to cover all of the SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) required by The National Curriculum, we have chosen to base our writing skills progression the Jane Considine Progression Through Genres document, which you will find at the top of this page. This serves as a guide to tell you what your child will be practising in their writing lessons, depending on the type of text they are reading and learning about within a unit of work. 
 
Finally, our favourite thing about reading is that we have a very special member of staff to help us, and he is an honorary member of The Pawsome Gang.... scroll down the page to meet this very special individual!
Not sure what to read? 
 
Take a look at the website below to explore some super options!
Click on the link below to find out what to read next! 
Spellings
 
In Key Stage 2, children have a spelling lesson once each week, where they learn the rule associated with their new spellings. They have the opportunity to practise these words and can do this at intervals throughout the week. 
 
We have moved away from the old method of 'look, say, cover, write, check' in favour of a more constructive approach, where children look carefully at the word and then write it out, using exposure to the word to support them in copying it down. We think that over-learning through exposure to spellings is a crucial means of getting children to remember the formation of the word. 
 
Below this text box are the statutory word lists for Years 3&4 and the same for Years 5&6. These are tested half termly, and are the source of two of the tougher spellings on the lists children bring home each week. These lists are the National Curriculum expectations of all children by the end of KS2. Again, exposure to these words is crucial for children to be able to be confident spellers within their writing.
 
In addition, we are using our new handwriting scheme to support the process of learning spellings, as we will be carefully forming letters to ensure we are all writing at the required standard for the year group, using age - appropriate spellings.
Speaking and Listening skills
 
At Etwall, we use talk partners in every subject, ensuring we can voice our ideas and discuss them with others. We see this as a crucial part of the learning process, and we develop and challenge each other through talk and listening.
 
By providing modelled talk and sentence stems, word banks and visual aids, we can ensure that the speaking and listening taking place is of high quality and ensures progression. 
 
Establishing and developing language verbally is crucial in developing reading and writing skills, as a child cannot write a sentence that they cannot say aloud first. 
 
Take a look at this brilliant website to see how you could support your child in developing their language skills for learning:
 
 
Cultural capital
 
Through the provision of opportunities, we will immerse learners in experiences which inspire and develop their reading and writing skills.
 
Such experiences will be:
  • Author visits
  • Library club
  • Writing letters and getting real -life responses (e.g. Jubilee trees and library paint)
  • Theatre visits
  • Drama productions
  • Publishing our writing in our purple books
  • World Book Day
  • Film Day dress up 
  • Using varied stimuli to inspire writing, including film 
  • Reading for Pleasure dedicated time every day
  • Huge investment in great quality texts through consultation with Chestnut Books 
  • Experiences to inspire e.g. Forest School; Residential; Trip to the Open Centre 
  • Audiobooks and varied options for accessing texts
  • Accelerated Reader
  • No More Marking nationwide moderation
  • Letter-join for handwriting skill development
Impact
 
Please see below for examples of the impact of the English Curriculum at Etwall Primary School.
Visit from an author
 
In September, we were visited by an author called Tim, also known as TM Jorden, author of 'The adventures of Poppy and Lord Ted'. 
 
He brought Lord Ted in to see us and spent time showing us how to be writers, too. 
 
Tim read to us, and told us about what he did to become a writer. Many of us have now begun writing our own adventures!
 
Here is Tim's fantastic website:
 
 
 
Working together
 
At Etwall, we enjoy working together to improve our writing. We work in pairs to develop our skills, and use a shopping list or 'success criteria' to help us make sure we have practised writing all of the features of a text genre,  
See below for some lovely examples of KS1 writing
Below you will see some children performing in front of their class - we love showing off what we can do, as well as learning from each other!
Author skills
 
Our learners love to show off their imaginative writing, and sometimes that means we enter competitions.
 
This time, Lucy in Year 6 was a runner up for her incredible clever fairy character, created for the next book written by our friend, TM Jorden. 
 
Here she is in our wonderful new library, receiving her award from TM Jorden and one of his main characters, Lord Ted! 
Handwriting at EPS: Letter-join 
 
We use the Letter-join programme to help children form their letters correctly. It ensures that children develop the skills of handwriting, which are needed for speed and careful presentation, as they begin to write for more sustained periods of time as they move up through the key stages. 
 
Stamina and careful presentation mean that children are strong communicators of their ideas, and are able to focus on the content of their writing, rather than the mechanics. 
 
The website we use is called Letter-join, and your child will have access to it from home, in order that they may spend time practising their letter formations and letter joins where necessary. 
 
Please contact your child's teacher if you require support with this.