Children are taught English for between 50 minutes and 1 hour daily in their own mixed ability class groups which will not be set by ability. Mixed ability classes allows for equal opportunities for all children, challenge for all children, and positive expectations that all children will achieve and make progress. At CJS, we will not put a ceiling on any child’s learning through setting children for their English lessons.

Cross-curricular opportunities to teach English as part of the wider curriculum used in all other subject areas:

• The children will be given opportunities to practise their reading comprehension skills in foundation subjects through research, active learning lessons, use of films, or being given focused information gathering activities.
• The children will be given opportunities to write about their experiential learning in the wider curriculum, using different genres and techniques which are linked to the relevant genre, appropriate to their Year group, as detailed in the long-term and medium-term planning.

Each class carries out (at least) weekly spelling lessons.

In English, the structure of the lessons will follow the CJS English writing sequence (see appendix 1 of the writing policy below). Mental warm ups, starters and plenaries and mini-plenaries will form part of all lessons and higher order question will stimulate reflection from pupils, encouraging them to ask ‘why’ they have made a literacy choice and ‘how’ they can make improvements to their writing; leading them to ‘explain’ they effect they want their writing to have on the reader.

Children should be taught to revise and edit their writing following the ARMS and CUPS prompts (see Appendix 4 of the Writing Policy below).

Opportunities for discussion about Writing are built into lessons. Children across the school are given opportunities to discuss writing genres, grammar conventions, punctuation, vocabulary and audience and purpose.

Regular spelling teaching is undertaken at an appropriate time in the day, not necessarily in English lessons.