English at Harrowbarrow

Reading

At Harrowbarrow, reading for pleasure is at the heart of our reading curriculum. We have reading areas in each class with carefully selected books to engage pupils. We also have recommended reads for pupils and at KS2 pupils recommend books to each other. At KS1 we follow the Read, Write Inc program. You can find more information about this and about reading for pleasure at KS1 in the PowerPoint for parents. At KS2 we use Accelerated Reader. More information about this can be found in this PowerPoint for parents.

Teachers have also decided their own book spines for each year group. These are the picture books or novels that teachers feel are essential for pupils to read. You can find the book titles here to read with your child. All the books are available in school to read and some are part of the whole class reading set that are shared in school.

Writing

At Harrowbarrow we use the Talk for Writing approach at KS2. This means that children are immersed in a text to begin with. Then they use this as a model for their own writing. Finally, pupils are given the opportunity to incorporate some of the ideas from the model in their own independent piece. These are the genres of writing that we cover across the year.

Genres to be covered in KS2	Autumn		Spring		Summer
	Fiction	Non fiction	Fiction	Non fiction	Fiction	Non fiction
Class 3	Fairy stories Portal stories Poetry	Non chronological reports Recount – newspapers	Myths and legends Wishing stories	Instructions Persuasive writing	Stories from other cultures Conquering the monster story	Explanation texts Discussion text
Class 4	Stories with a historical setting Narrative with dialogue Poetry	Non chronological reports Recount – newspaper	Stories that advances the action with dialogue Poetry	Persuasive writing Recount – biography/autobiography	Stories from other cultures Mystery stories Poetry	Balanced argument Explanation texts

At KS1, the writing element is covered in the Read, Write Inc program. You can see here the different genres that are covered and the aspects of writing that are covered each time. Here is the progression in fiction and non fiction at KS2.

We celebrate writing by putting up these independent pieces on our writing walls.

We also use History, Science, Geography, ICT, R.E and DT lessons as opportunities to further improve our writing skills. We use the principles of Talk for Writing in these sessions at KS1 to help pupils’ to develop their writing.

For more information about how English is planned and taught at Harrowbarrow, please click on the read the English Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement