English
At Ashton Primary School, English plays a vital role in our children’s learning and in everyday life. We want all children to develop the skills they need to communicate confidently, express their thoughts and feelings, and understand the world around them.
Through speaking and listening, children learn to share ideas, ask questions and build positive relationships. Through reading, they are introduced to new vocabulary, knowledge and experiences, helping them to grow culturally, emotionally, socially and intellectually. Reading also supports children in developing empathy and imagination, as well as building on what they already know.
Writing allows children to organise their thoughts, express themselves creatively and communicate clearly with others. Together, these skills help children become confident, capable learners.
We believe that strong language skills are essential for life beyond school. Our aim is to ensure that every child leaves Ashton Primary School with the reading, writing, speaking and listening skills they need to succeed and to take an active, confident role in society.
writing
At Ashton Primary School, we follow the Lancashire Talk Programme in Years 1-6 to support children in becoming confident and capable writers. This approach places a strong emphasis on talk, discussion and vocabulary, helping children to develop and organise their ideas before they begin writing.
We use a wide range of high-quality texts across all year groups, carefully chosen to reflect a full variety of genres. These texts inspire our children’s writing and help them to understand how different types of writing work. Through exploring these texts, children learn about the features, structure and language needed to write successfully for each genre.
Children are taught that good writing is a process. They plan their ideas, draft, edit and redraft their work before producing a final, published piece that they can be proud of.
At the heart of all writing at Ashton Primary School are the key ideas of Purpose, Audience and Language. Children are encouraged to think carefully about:
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What is the purpose of their writing?
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Who is the audience?
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Does the language they have chosen create the desired effect?
This helps children to reflect on and improve their work, making their writing clearer, more engaging and more effective.
To find out more about how writing skills and knowledge develop from EYFS through to Year 6, please see our progression document below:
Progression in Key Writing Skills from EYFS - Year 6
phonics and early reading
At Ashton Primary School, we know how important phonics and early reading are in helping children develop a lifelong love of books. We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics scheme to ensure all children become confident, enthusiastic readers from an early age.
Click the button below to find out more about our approach to phonics and early reading.
Reading
Reading is central to life at Ashton Primary School. We work hard to create a culture where reading is well taught, widely encouraged and truly enjoyed. Children are supported to see reading as something that is pleasurable, powerful and valuable for life.
Reading is embedded across the whole curriculum, with children accessing a wide range of high-quality texts to support their learning in subjects such as history and geography. Children are encouraged to read regularly at home and, through planned visits, to use our school library and join the local library to enjoy the wider opportunities it offers.
Children who find reading more challenging are carefully supported to make good progress. This may include targeted interventions, as well as regular opportunities to read with adults. We are also grateful to our volunteers, who visit weekly to listen to children read and talk with them about their books.
Once children have secured their decoding skills (for most, by the end of Year 1), the focus moves to developing language comprehension. From Year 2 to Year 6, children are taught a range of comprehension skills using resources from The Literary Curriculum, which provides a rich and diverse range of texts to broaden vocabulary, deepen understanding and foster a love of reading.