Developing a lifelong love for reading, writing and oracy is at the absolute heart of our English curriculum at Uplands. We understand that building relationships between these different skills will enable our children to enjoy, understand and control language for a range of purposes and audiences.
We want our children to be passionate, competent and fluent readers who apply their decoding and comprehension skills to new situations and further their own knowledge. We have robust phonics and spelling planning which ensures sounds and spelling rules are carefully taught and consolidated throughout a child’s learning journey. We follow ‘Bug Club Phonics’ in EYFS and Key Stage 1 to ensure consistency of teaching.
Through oracy, children are taught to be effective communicators, developing their speaking and listening skills, as well as their confidence and ability to present ideas. We support our pupils to develop a broad vocabulary, increasing their ability to articulate themselves effectively, as well as understand others.
In writing, children are taught to compose their thoughts articulately and expressively, structure their ideas coherently and transcribe these fluently and accurately. We want our children to understand the power that words can have on others and feel able to harness this to communicate their thoughts to a range of audiences and for a range of purposes, making suitable adaptations to their style accordingly.
Below you will find a range of resources that may help you to support your child’s learning in English:
The curriculum offer for Reading can be found here.
The curriculum offer for Writing can be found here.
Long term plans for English can be found here.
Bookfest – A celebration of reading can be found here.
At Uplands, we explicitly teach and promote oracy (speaking and listening skills) to help our children build self-confidence and improve their communication. This document gives a brief overview of how we teach oracy.
SPaG stands for Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar. Parents and carers may find this document useful to outline which concepts are taught when, demystify terminology and give examples of how to use different devices. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to speak to your child’s teacher.
A guide for parents and carers on how to support your child in learning and practising their spellings. This document contains lots of hints and tips as well as games and strategies to use at home to support spelling.
We all know how vital reading at home is to a child’s development but it can sometimes feel like a challenge. Here are ten top tips to establish (or re-establish) a reading routine at home. As always, speak to your child’s teacher if you have any questions or concerns about reading at home.
A document which explains our use of ‘reading VIPERS’ at school to teach comprehension skills and how parents and carers can use these concepts to support reading at home for children of all ages.
A set of useful questions that can be used when reading with your child to work on their VIPERS reading comprehension skills. These can also be found in your child’s reading record.
A set of useful questions that can be used when reading with your child to work on their VIPERS reading comprehension skills. These can also be found in your child’s reading record.
This document explains the reasons behind using reading records and how this can have a positive effect on your child’s reading experience. There are hints and tips of how to get the most out of using a reading record, as well as quotes from our pupils on their experiences of using a reading record.
Sometimes it can be difficult to know what to write in your child’s reading record. This document includes some tips and ideas, both for what parent and carer comments and for what pupils can write themselves once they become confident to do so.
The best way to support your child’s reading is simply to enjoy stories together every day. However, sometimes you may be looking for some extra, different reading ideas for your child to complete at home. Here are a wide range of different activities that can support reading, complete with extra challenges for those who need it.
This is a useful document which explains how to best support your child in their reading journey. It gives tips for reading with children at all ages and includes advice for reluctant readers and for those who find challenging.
Some information about our Reading Ambassadors and the work they do to promote reading for pleasure at Uplands.
Some information for parents and carers about our school reading challenge, which runs from Year 2 to Year 6.
These are the twelve texts that have been carefully selected for our Year 2 children.
These are the twelve texts that have been carefully selected for our Year 3 children.
These are the twelve texts that have been carefully selected for our Year 4 children.
These are the twelve texts that have been carefully selected for our Year 5 children.
These are the twelve texts that have been carefully selected for our Year 6 children.
For those children who like to write but need an idea to spark their creativity! Why not try writing a book together for fun?
Parent Workshop Handouts
Web links
