Introduction

At Meath Green Infant School, we understand that language and literacy are two of the most important building blocks. We base our learning around high quality texts that help to provide a rich context for children’s learning. We take pride in immersing pupils in learning that is both memorable and engaging.

Our English curriculum helps our pupils to acquire and develop the knowledge, skills and vocabulary they need to be independent, successful readers and writers. We hope that our pupils will develop a life-long love of reading and appreciate the power of the written word. 

Writing

Teachers create a positive writing culture in our school. Writing is promoted, enjoyed and considered a pleasure for adults and children alike.

The approach we adopt to teach writing is based on The Write Stuff by Jane Considine.  High quality demonstration writing is the basis of this model whereby children are explicitly taught and shown how to craft the ideas, grammar and techniques of writing.

The Write Stuff uses a combination of ‘experience lessons’ and ‘sentence stacking lessons’ to help children develop their writing. Experience lessons help to build children’s knowledge of a topic and ignite their imagination. Sentence stacking refers to the fact that sentences are stacked together chronologically and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing.  

Throughout the learning process, the children’s writing is celebrated and displayed in classrooms.

Reading

At Meath Green Infant School, we aim to develop our children’s confidence, fluency, understanding and engagement in reading. We ensure that all children have the opportunity to read widely and often, encouraging a love of books and nurturing lifelong readers who can easily access information and read for pleasure. 

Reading is one of life’s most essential skills and a child's reading experience is much more than the reading books that come home from school. Reading is happening all the time in our classrooms and across school. It is taught in English lessons, but children practise and use their reading across all subjects too.

Phonics Scheme

We use the DfE validated phonics scheme Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) to teach daily phonics lessons. ELS is a full systematic, synthetic phonics scheme which covers all requirements of the EYFS and National Curriculum for reading. The scheme has been carefully planned to ensure phonics lessons are of a high quality as well as engaging. 

Phonics Sounds Videos 

Phase 2 sounds - https://vimeo.com/753929025/5eaa45c0aa

Phase 3 sounds - https://vimeo.com/753931102/b9a2f8194f

Phase 5 sounds - https://vimeo.com/753933192/43104a30e0