Curriculum - English

Intent and Impact: Reading

Intent

At Kenmore Park Junior School the aim of the Destination Reader curriculum is to allow children to experience a wide range of engaging, high quality texts. It is a structured, daily approach to teaching reading which has been designed to meet the demands of the national curriculum and provide the children with an opportunity to acquire new and varied vocabulary that can be directly applied to their writing. The approach provides key strategies which aid comprehension and reading for meaning and develops children’s motivation to read broadly for pleasure and purpose. Destination Reader uses teacher modelling and partner work whilst developing independence and resilience.

Impact

Daily exploration of language in different contexts through reading lessons:

• Develops the children’s language acquisition.
• Improves the children’s writing as they are able to use a wider range of vocabulary
• Increases the confidence and accuracy that children articulate the meaning of new vocabulary
• Improves on reading attainment levels and reading progress across KS2

Intent and Impact: Writing

Intent

At Kenmore Park Junior School, English and the teaching of English is the foundation of our curriculum. Our main aim is to ensure every single child becomes primary literate and progresses in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Staff at Kenmore feel it is seminal to highlight and be aware of the differing groups of learners and vulnerable children in their class. Once this information is acquired, teachers can plan and teach personalised English lessons which focus on the particular needs of each child. We recognise that each child has their own starting point upon entry to every year group and progress is measured in line with these starting points to ensure every child can celebrate success.

English at Kenmore Park will not only be a daily discrete lesson, but is at the cornerstone of the entire curriculum. It is embedded within all our lessons and we will strive for a high level of English for all. Through using high-quality texts, immersing children in vocabulary rich learning environments and ensuring new curriculum expectations and the progression of skills are met, the children at Kenmore Park will be exposed to a language heavy, creative and continuous English curriculum which will not only enable them to become primary literate but will also develop a love of reading, creative writing and purposeful speaking and listening.

When the new curriculum was implemented in 2014, many professionals commented that the creativity had been eliminated and children were expected to be taught a diet of very dry grammar and punctuation skills. At Kenmore Park, our vision is for the creativity to be at the helm of our English curriculum and for children to learn new skills in a fun and engaging way.

Impact

The impact on our children is clear: progress, sustained learning and transferrable skills. With the implementation of the writing journey being well established and taught thoroughly in both key stages, children are becoming more confident writers and by the time they are in upper Key Stage 2, most genres of writing are familiar to them and the teaching can focus on creativity, writer’s craft, sustained writing and manipulation of grammar and punctuation skills.

As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing standards have also improved and skills taught in the English lessons are transferred into other subjects; this shows consolidation of skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use specific grammar, punctuation and grammar objectives. We hope that as children move on from us to further their education and learning that their creativity, passion for English and high aspirations travel with them and continue to grow and develop as they do.

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