"We are authors,  actors and bookworms"

“You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.” Lee Lacocca

“A child who reads will be an adult who thinks.”   Sasha Salmina

“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”    Paul J. Meyer

Why should we learn English?

English is at the heart of all children’s learning; it enables children to both communicate with others effectively for a variety of purposes and to examine their own and others’ experiences, feelings and ideas, giving these order and meaning.

At BPJS, we believe that literacy, language and communication are key life skills and that developing language skills, opens up a world of wonder and curiosity for all learners. English is central to children’s intellectual, emotional and social development; it has an essential role across the curriculum and helps pupils’ learning to be coherent and progressive across it.

Phonics

High quality phonics intervention is delivered regularly through 'Monster Phonics' to children who need to revise and revisit aspects of phonics and vocabulary development is infused throughout the curriculum to develop a breadth and depth of knowledge.

How will it help children in later life?

Communication takes you to amazing places emotionally, imaginatively and in reality. 

Become the: author, actor, editor, leader, illustrator, poet, storyteller, entertainer, biographer, team player, friend, listener, advocate, web designer, media mogul, influencer, news anchor, You Tuber, legal representative, judge, jury, politician, teacher, expert, professor, medic, financer, sales person, entrepreneur, DJ, retailer, sports commentator, carer, sports person, builder, asset manager…………. The list is endless for communication is essential to every career. 

As language specialists we:

• Listen carefully to others and respect their views and opinions
• Speak clearly to others and use a wide range of vocabulary
• Follow the rules of spoken English, for example using the correct tense and verb agreement
• Retell stories in interesting and imaginative ways
• Enjoy conversations with adults and our friends
• Understand and use standard English
• Are confident speakers
• Can read and write fluently across the curriculum
• Speak in role and perform as a character
• Improve and develop performance skills.

As readers we will:

• Read for pleasure and enjoyment
• Promote a passion and a love for reading across our whole school community.
• Be enthusiastic about a range of different texts.
• Read aloud with both adults and other children
• Improve vocabulary through text choices
• Find meaning through texts
• Discuss and evaluate different books.

As writers we will:

Throughout their journey at BPJS we aim for children to become entertaining, independent writers by developing:

• The ability to write fluently and with detail on a number of topics throughout the curriculum.
• A vivid imagination which makes readers engage with and enjoy their writing.
• An impressive vocabulary and an excellent knowledge of writing techniques to extend details or description.
• Well organised and structured writing, which includes a variety of sentence structures.
• Excellent transcription skills that ensure their writing is well presented and punctuated, spelled correctly and neat.
• A love of writing and its appreciation of its educational, cultural and entertainment values.

What can children expect in English at BPJS?

We are confident that the children will gain a love for English throughout their time at our school.

• Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune , be the actor
• Exciting topics to discuss, debate and write about.
• Drama experiences through English lessons.
• Role-play and performance
• Perform in a play the community
• The opportunity to explore a wide variety of texts.
• Fantastic lessons with superheroes
• Inspiration author visits and workshops
• Dress up fun on World Book Day
• Library visits and tours
• Expect a buzz around our annual writing week
• Frequent book fair visits to school
•  A chance to be a librarian and reading buddy.
• Take part in numerous writing competitions
• Become a reading role model and represent our school in the city.
• Build upon enjoyment for writing by becoming a talented writer.

What can parents expect?

• Questions like – “What is a fronted adverbial?” “How do you convert into the passive voice?”
• Hearing about the inspirational books that the children are reading
• ‘Earworms’ from learning lines and songs for productions and assemblies
• Being kindly persuaded to purchase books from the travelling book fair
• Sitting down with your child to read for 15 minutes a day
• Creating costumes for World Book Day
• Visits to the book shop / library to collect books
• Enjoying discussions with your child around the weekly talk homework topic featured in the newsletter
• Devising funny and memorable ways to learn spellings
• To hear about our amazing visiting authors and how they became writers
• What happens next? Get interested in their child’s reading books and ask them some exciting questions about how the character feels and why the author has chosen certain words
• Get Googling - undertake research with the children

How we teach:

We want children to enjoy and appreciate a rich variety of literature.

 BPJS uses the high quality texts and teaching principles from the CLPE’s Power of Reading project to provide an engaging English curriculum that is based on a wide variety of different books.

The Power of Reading is used across many schools and local authorities nationwide and draws on extensive classroom-based research and development.  The Power of Reading supports creativity and enjoyment through the English curriculum, whilst developing a love of reading and writing.

The National Curriculum (2014) drives the learning in our BPJS curriculum, using the Power of Reading to support us in teaching all of the statutory requirements.  We complement this with additional opportunities for grammar, punctuation and spelling, as well as extended writing sessions. Furthermore, children also participate in regular handwriting and individual/shared/guided reading sessions.

Handwriting & Spelling:

At BPJS we are very proud of our pupil’s handwriting and take particular care in our cursive/joined up style. We use the letter join handwriting scheme to support the children with their handwriting and this has been proven to improve their skills.

Handwriting is a skill that influences the quality of work throughout the curriculum. The children will develop their skills so that they can produce fluent, legible and, eventually speedy joined up handwriting and to understand the different forms of handwriting used for different purposes. In handwriting we use "Letter Join" to support teaching and learning.

When teaching spelling  different strategies need to be used to enable each individual learner to access the curriculum. Throughout the year, children are taught in a variety of styles, giving written, practical and oral activities. Learning spelling strategies is an individual process, and giving children different means by which to learn will enable them to choose an appropriate method which works for them. Effective spelling strategies include a combination of reading and writing, together with quality teaching.

We also use "Rising Stars Spelling" alongside our own school spelling strategies.

Writing:

Our teaching of writing works alongside POR combined with the national curriculum statements to provide children with an array of skills that they are able to build on throughout life.

Inclusion

Differentiation is key to delivering an effective and inclusive curriculum.   All pupils' starting points are considered and activities and work is matched to ensure pupils reach their full potential, whilst supporting the child's learning.  Adult support, a range of activities, equipment and resources can enable children of all abilities to access learning. 

Our school will ensure that:

• all children have entitlement to a broad and balanced, enriching curriculum
• all children enjoy an active involvement in English
• all children have opportunities to experience a broad and balanced range of English activities
• all children have opportunities to learn about English from different times and cultures
• all children will be given equal access to the experience of English regardless of their gender, race, disability, medical or other needs
• teachers use a variety of approaches that are matched to the activity and the ability of the children