The study of English is key at Howe Dell as we firmly believe that, through the development of effective spoken and written communication, it is the key to all learning. It enables children to access the wider curriculum and is vital in achieving future success. Learning to read is a priority and we are committed to ensuring that all children leave Howe Dell with not only the necessary skills to read but also with a real love of reading.

Our English curriculum will provide all children with:

• Daily access to a validated phonics and early reading programme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, to ensure that all children have the skills required to decode words
• Timely support and intervention to enable children to ‘keep up’ with the curriculum and achieve their full potential
• Exposure to high quality, appropriately pitched texts during English lessons, including whole school texts which are used by all year groups at the start of each term
• Immersion in a wide range of speaking and listening, drama, reading and writing activities
• Exposure to a rich, varied vocabulary which is embedded within our English curriculum but also extends beyond into other subject areas through the use of high quality fiction and non-fiction texts with literature links to each subject

Here I Am! diversity theme week Spring 2022

A week of events to promote diversity centred around the use of Coming to England, an autobiographical book that tells the story of Floella Benjamin and her experiences of coming to live in England as part of the Windrush generation.

'Journey' Whole School English Display Spring 2022

Each class from Nursery through to Year 6 welcomed 2022 by using the wordless picture book Journey by Aaron Becker to create our whole school display. This allowed us to show the progression through each stage of an English teaching sequence, across all year groups.

English Teaching Sequence Displays Autumn 2021

For World Book Day 2020, Howe Dell used the inspirational text 'Tell Me a Dragon' by Jackie Morris. This book is particularly special to Howe Dell as Jackie visited the school in 2011 and even drew a picture of a dragon which is displayed in Mrs. Massey's office. Children took part in a Story Swap with another year group and had the opportunity to dress up as a mythical creature. The whole school enjoyed reading this book and the wonderful opportunities it gave us for writing from Reception all the way through to Year 6. 

As well as a whole school focus on the text 'Weslandia' by Paul Fleischman, classes took part in a story swap session to celebrate World Book Day.

Classes were paired up so that the younger children enjoyed listening to a story read to them by children in Key Stage 2. Class teachers also chose their favourite story to read to the class. It was a very valuable and fun experience for all!

 

                             

Young Writers' Little Riddlers competition Autumn 2017

 

Year One and Year Two took part in a poetry writing competition in the Autumn term. We were delighted to receive the amazing news that 103 children had their riddles selected for publication!

The children were presented with their certificates in assembly and were thrilled when they received their copies of the book containing their poems.