English is the glue that holds the curriculum together and is designed to develop skills for life. Throughout their years here at Sheen Mount, an ever-growing confidence will be nurtured through purposeful, innovative and personal experiences which are relevant to the lives of each individual child and valued in the school and wider community. This high-quality curriculum will empower children's written and oral communication, and enable them to read fluently, as well as for pleasure, by equipping them with the skills necessary for their future.

Reading

At Sheen Mount, it is our intent to encourage all pupils to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction so that they develop an appreciation of reading. Throughout the years, they will develop their reading skills* so that they become confident readers, are able to gain knowledge across the curriculum, and enhance their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live in. By the end of their time here at Sheen Mount, our pupils will be able to read fluently and confidently, and enjoy reading for pleasure.

*Reading skills: phonics and phoneme/grapheme awareness (to enable children to decode),  linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and grammar), reading comprehension and fluency.

Writing

At Sheen Mount, our pupils become confident writers who enjoy the writing process, feel proud of their written work and enjoy reading their work. We aim to equip them with the skills necessary for communicating effectively through writing, by providing exciting writing opportunities. Our children understand writing is a tool for communication and are able to develop their own writing ‘voice’ as they progress through the school. It is important for our pupils to have an awareness of audience, purpose and context while being exposed to a variety of genres and experiences in both formal and informal pieces of writing. Pupils develop stamina for planning, drafting, editing and redrafting, clearly conveying thoughts and opinions at sentence and text level. Through this stage of the writing process, our pupils become effective independent and peer editors with a willingness to take risks. All pupils know the writing skill they are applying and are able to apply the success criteria during the writing process. The ability to spell, use effective vocabulary, grammar and punctuation appropriately, and write fluently, legibly and cohesively are developed and built upon each year.

Grammar and Punctuation

‘Grammar sets writers free. No one would think it a kindness to give a teenager a car without teaching them to drive and that includes the rules of the road.’

Our pupils will be equipped with the knowledge and understanding of how grammar works. Through contextualised grammar teaching, our pupils will understand that there are a range of shaping sentences or texts and that different choices of words can generate different possibilities for meaning-making. They will then be able to make connections between grammar and writing and use it effectively to enhance their written work.

Spelling

Our pupils are immersed in a language-rich environment and develop an enthusiasm for language which takes place both in the classroom and in the wider school. They will develop their phonic knowledge and understand the importance of morphology and etymology and the relationship between meaning and spelling in engaging and interactive lessons.  We aim to teach children the necessary rules and continue to build, through the years, a bank of strategies to enable them to spell an unknown word with confidence.

Handwriting

Pupils will leave Sheen Mount with the ability to write fluently and legibly at speed and to have developed their use of the Sheen Mount cursive script. If they are able to produce legible writing comfortably, at speed and with little conscious effort, it will then allow them to attend to the higher-level aspects of writing composition and content.