Subject Lead: Mrs McKellar

“One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world” – Malala Yousafzai

English is the heart of our curriculum. Through the early acquisition of language and the continual development of vocabulary, children begin to understand abstract and concrete concepts, connect ideas and gain articulacy to express themselves.  In its many forms, literacy enables children to not only make sense of the world, but to situate themselves within it.

Along with developing skills of inference and deduction, vocabulary expansion is a key element in all reading and writing lessons.  At the end of their primary school career, the Holtspur child would have acquired a richly expanded vocabulary along with the knowledge of how to select words appropriately to fit the purpose and audience, thus eliciting the desired effect. They would also be able to understand more challenging texts which demand a strong command of the English language through their continued refinement of inference and deduction skills.

At Holtspur, we implement The Power of Reading created by CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education). The Power of Reading enables all the teaching and learning, in English, to be centered around one high quality text either per term or per half term. This allows the children to enjoy reading and become fully immersed in the text. This enables the children to have a deeper understanding of the variety of texts, author’s language, the impact of illustrations and opens the discussion of life experiences. The Power of Reading, at Holtspur, allows us to emphasise the importance of books and literature in enabling children to become confident, happy and enthusiastic readers and writers, with all the benefits this brings.