English

English – The Literary Curriculum

At The Stables Independent School, we believe that a high quality English curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion, and expose them to a variety of high quality texts and stimuli, as well as frequent, purposeful opportunities to practise and review key skills. Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum and we follow the Literacy Leaves programme of learning with lessons and resources adapted to meet the needs of all pupils as individuals. 

We aspire to support our pupils to read easily, fluently and with good understanding and develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. We want our pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary and to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We want our pupils to become confident in the use of speech and discussion to learn, showing an ability to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas.

READING

At The Stables Independent School, each pupil is assessed and taught to read individually, with a personalised approach planned and delivered, including additional interventions where required. Pupils are grouped for teaching according to ability to ensure achievement and progression occurs at the appropriate rate. This also allows for peer collaboration, tuition and assessment. We use the Accelerated Reader programme to assess and record pupil progress in reading age and ability. We want to encourage our pupils to read for pleasure and to realise that reading can be fun and inspiring. 

Pupils participate in daily reading activities and teaching. Through a range of activities and methods, including Accelerated reader and Drop Everything And read (DEAR), our pupils can practise a range of reading skills, both individually and and as a small group, that will promote a love of reading and encourage the ability to read a range of texts confidently and independently. Through a variety of teaching activities, pupils will be exposed to to a range of whole texts and excerpts, in a range of genres across fiction and non-fiction. 

The school has a newly refurbished library where pupils have access to a range of general interest, story books, comics and magazines; pupils can request certain books that they woul;d like to read. 

PHONICS

At The Stables Independent School, we use the Fresh Start programme to deliver our phonics teaching with the lower and upper Key Stage 2/3 learners whilst KS1 is delivered using Read Write Inc. Each pupil is taught at the appropriate phase of letters and sounds to either fill gaps in, or build upon their knowledge and understanding as required. Pupils undertake various activities to assess prior knowledge and skills. Not every pupil will require phonics input.