At All Saints Church School, our vision for English is that our pupils embrace reading and writing from the moment that they enter our school. We want them to see that through their literacy skills they are able to understand and communicate ideas, whether it be to inform, entertain, discuss or persuade. 

Our aim is that, regardless of background or ability, we hope that all children within our school will be confident readers and writers by the end of year 6.  

Our English curriculum inspires our children through the choice of high-quality text, videos and images, and it encompasses all our school values during our lessons. To support our inspiring curriculum, many of the lessons are cross-curricular and thus the children are able to make clear links between how their literacy skills can be used in different areas.  

EYFS 

In EYFS, the children are given daily phonic sessions tailored to their ability,  enabling them to move rigorously through the basics of reading and writing. Mark making is both encouraged and celebrated with Acorns, and by the end of the year it is expected that most children will be able to use the alphabetic code to write simple words and sentences.  

Librarians 

The role of librarian is a coveted position which year 6 children have to apply for in writing and attend an interview for. The children who accept this responsibility give their own time to managing and running the library as well as working on and improving different aspects of celebrating reading, such as story time, displays and organising our Wild Library. 

Montacute Carnival Writing Competition 

Every year, the children are invited to enter the local carnival story writing competition, which involves several local schools. The competition which is based on an image, is run in year groups. Winners and runners-up in the competition are invited to attend an Awards Ceremony at our school.  

World Book Day  

World Book Day is an important date in our school calendar and the school comes alive with the buzz of book talk and story characters on this day. The librarians organise and run the day which focusses on a range of activities to foster a love of storytelling and the art of writing books.   

Visitors 

To inspire the Love of Reading in our school, we organise a range of different activities. This involves inviting authors to share their books and encouraging children to write creatively. Recent visitors have included Joffre White, author of several ‘Frog’ books and the Illustrator of Horrible Histories – Martin Brown who has also written several books, including Nell and Cave Bear.  

Reading Buddies 

Within class, children often share books with a reading buddy. This can be within a class or between classes. In addition to this, some children will volunteer to be Reading Role Models, where they will support weaker readers and establish a positive rapport between them.