English

At Anston Park Infant School we aim to foster a love of English in all our children. We want them to aspire and have no limits to their ambitions. The National Curriculum is written to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. At Anston Park Infant School this is delivered through the implementation of the English programmes of study and children have many opportunities to use and apply their skills across all other subjects. 

The English curriculum encompasses the following:

- Speaking and listening

- Phonics

- Reading

- Writing

- Handwriting

- SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar)

 At Anston Park Infant School we strive to produce readers for life and we actively promote a love of reading. We want our children to move from learning to read to reading to learn. To support children in the early stages of reading we follow the Little Wandle complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) In EYFS and Year 1 children have  daily phonic lessons. These lessons include revisiting previous learning, introducing a new GPC, practising and applying their skills. As part of phonics lessons children will begin to read GPCs and words with automaticity building fluency at an early stage. We make the clear link between reading and writing when teaching phonics lessons at Anston Park Infant School.

As part of the  Little Wandle SSP children access books precisely matched to their phonic knowledge. They take part in a phonic driven practice reading session three times a week with the same book. We place an emphasis on the need to practise and apply phonic skills so your child will change their book once a week in EYFS and Year 1 to give them time to read and re-read the same text.  In school, the practice reading sessions follow a three day pattern. Day one we will introduce the phonemes in the book and any tricky words, discuss new or unknown vocabulary and read the book for the first time. Day two we move to reading the book with fluency and if you hear your child talk about ‘prosody’ this is the term we use in school to talk about fluent reading. The last practice reading day focuses on comprehension skills and verbally discussing the book.  Practice makes perfect!

If you  wish to find out more you can use the link below to the parent section of the Little Wandle website where there are videos showing different parts of the lessons taught in schools. You can find out more about:

● Support for phonics
● How we teach
● Books coming home
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/ 

To compliment our reading we have a wide range of reading material suitable for EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 so that children have access to high quality books covering a range of themes, based on different cultures, traditional stories and from a range of authors. To promote a love of reading we have a dedicated story time slot each day for all classes and children take home a book to share as well as a decodable book every week. As another part of our drive to promote a love of reading every year we celebrate World Book Day in school. Children have swapped classes to share books with a different year group and we often dress as book characters or ready to snuggle down for a bedtime story in our pyjamas. More recently we joined live links to meet authors and illustrators including Swapna Haddow and Sheena Dempsy who commented on our artwork via Twitter to the children's delight! We have been lucky enough to have the author Sue Wilkins visiting our school in the past. She shared her stories and answered questions from children. Sue signed many books for children in school and provided us with a set of her books to keep. After attending our school Sue emailed this lovely message. 

"Thank you for giving me the best day I’ve ever had since I started doing school visits! I was made to feel welcome and at ease by all the staff and by the pupils too. It was obvious that the teachers had put a lot of thought and effort into my visit, with the result that the children seemed to be really well-prepared. I have to say I was touched by everyone’s enthusiasm."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 If you want to find out more about Sue Wilkins then you can visit her web page suewilkins.co.uk

In this section of the website you will also find attached electronic copies of some of the leaflets and guides which are available in school to support English. Copies of these documents can be requested if you wish to collect a paper version. These guides are always discussed at curriculum meetings at the start of a new school year. You will also find information about English in your child's individual journal. 

Please see the photos below to get a flavour of English at Anston Park Infant school. These include everything from book areas to our school library.

If you want to discuss any aspect of English do not hesitate to get it touch.

Mrs Frogson