At Ashbrook Junior School, we aim to support children to become fluent and confident in reading, writing and spoken language.  We follow the National Curriculum for English, making links to other areas of the curriculum where possible. 

We aim for children to speak confidently using standard English, listening to each other, building on the ideas they have heard and challenging the comments they hear.  Across the curriculum, we encourage children to apply these skills to a range of contexts. 

We follow a whole-class reading approach, aiming to support children to develop mastery over the objectives for their current stage of learning. 

We know that vocabulary development is essential in order for children to succeed and develop understanding across the curriculum.  Vocabulary is taught explicitly and is integral to the teaching of all subjects across the curriculum. 

Reading fluency and understanding is important in all areas of the curriculum, so as children move into our school, we continue to support those children who need support with their phonics skills and word recognition.  Through reading lessons and work in each subject, we support children to become fluent and to develop their confidence with decoding new words. 

We feel that it is important to develop children’s enjoyment of reading through the use of quality texts in Reading lessons, as part of their English work and through the enjoyment of sharing books as a class.  We have developed our school library to be a comfortable place for children to read and share books and we encourage children to share and talk about the books they read.  Our 100 books to read before the end of Year 4 and Year 6 challenges support children in reading a range of books and being able to explain their reading preferences. 

The teaching of spelling, punctuation and grammar is integral to our English lessons, supporting children to use these skills within their writing.  Children work towards a range of purposes, writing to inform, persuade, entertain and discuss.  Additional lessons to support both spelling and handwriting skills each week support children in learning these important skills.

Opportunities to read and write across the curriculum are structured and planned so that children are given every opportunity to succeed within English lessons and to apply their skills to other subject areas.