English Intent

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.