At Swanwick School and Sports College we recognise the importance to develop our pupils’ language and understand this is essential in order to allow them to communicate and take an active part in a literate society. The study of English will enable the pupils to communicate effectively through spoken English, written communication and to listen with understanding. It will encourage them to become enthusiastic, responsive and knowledgeable readers. They will understand that Standard English should be learned in order to participate in public life. English will be the tool and means by which other subjects are learned. Therefore, every opportunity will be given for the children to develop their English skills across the whole school curriculum.
At SSSC pupils have English lessons four times a week (Tuesday-Friday). As part of their English lessons No Nonsense Spelling and/or No Nonsense Phonics are used across the Key Stages to develop reading, spelling and handwriting. Spelling and Reading are integral parts of all our English lessons and teachers use a range of schemes to meet the pupils’ individual needs. Some of these include Rapid Reading, Hamilton Code Breakers, Reading Explorers and The Oxford Reading Tree scheme. Rapid Plus, Project X, Rising Stars and Toe by Toe.
At SSSC we promote the development of reading through our ethos of;
READ.
READ is an acronym of what we believe is an important part of developing pupils reading skills supporting the Reading Curriculum. These are the key areas which we feel pupils need to know and understand in order to develop their knowledge and love of reading.
Retrieval (including sequence and summarise)
Enjoy (including prediction skills)
Analysis (including vocabulary, comprehension, inference and explanation)
Decode (including fluency, phonics, phonemic awareness)
Our English learning environment allows our pupils to develop confidence and thrive in their learning. At Key Stages 2-4 pupils study a variety of Fiction and Non-Fiction themes including poetry. At Key Stage 4 we deliver a range of qualifications depending on pupil’s individual needs; these include OCR Entry Level English, Functional Skills and GSCE English Language.
Teachers use assessment criterion to help develop the pupil’s learning and assess where they are in their learning. All pupils at Swanwick School and Sports College have the opportunities to apply their knowledge to a variety of genres. Pupils learn best through fun and engaging lessons and we aim to do this using speaking and listening activities, interesting texts, immersive learning and also giving the pupils an opportunity to perform. This equips our children to become lifelong learners.
It is incredibly important that pupils see that literacy links in with all aspects of their learning. because of this, we give pupils a wide variety of opportunities to utilise and extend their literacy skills:
• Undertaking independent research using I Pads;
• Researching using a variety of secondary sources;
• Providing them with opportunities to write with support from adults and peers.