Rights Link: Article 29 – Goals of Education
Our Vision for English
At Sydenham Primary School, staff ensure that all children develop a love of learning and that pupils at all levels achieve their full potential. In the EYFS, Communication and Language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. The adults in our EYFS work with the children in the provision to encourage, facilitate and model high quality talk. The development of vocabulary is a keen focus for us and staff highlight and model new vocabulary well. This is supported through a reading rich environment where children are read to frequently and children engage with stories, non-fiction, rhyme and poetry with enthusiasm.
It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading and we have placed books at the core of our curriculum from Nursery to Year 6. Reading is at the heart of our curriculum. Reading is a key life skill. It is our intention that by the end of their primary education, all pupils will be able to read fluently and confidently. We endeavour for our children to become independent readers and thinkers who can develop their own thoughts and opinions on a range of familiar authors. We pride ourselves on providing an environment and curriculum which fosters a genuine enthusiasm for books and reading. The high quality texts we have chosen offer a window to the world, and reflect the rich and diverse school community; which enables our pupils to develop an understanding and acceptance of the world around them. Our aim: Every child a reader!
Our writing curriculum is text-based so it goes hand in hand with our mission to foster a genuine enthusiasm for books. We intend our children to be able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly and creatively through the written word. We aim to create confident and competent writers who have all the necessary skills and knowledge to write for a range of purposes and have the ability to draft, edit and improve their own work in order to create accurate, well considered pieces of writing. We set high expectations for all of our children to take pride in their work, have a fluent, joined handwriting style and consider the most effective way to present their final drafts.
We want all of our children to be capable readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their English skills to other curriculum areas and who are prepared for the next phases in their education.
The Power of Pictures
The Power of Pictures is a project devised by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE). The project began in 2013 when CLPE's Charlote Hacking and author Ed Vere put together a course for teachers designedto help them use picture books; understand the process that goes into develeoping a picture book; and to develop meaningful relationships between authors and schools.
Teachers help children to learn about the craft of picture book-making by working directly with a published children's author/illustrator. They investigate the writer's creative process, analyse their images, and explore the relationship between picture and text. Teachers use teaching sequences and copies of the picture book to enable children to develop their creative writing.
Teaching staff at Sydenham have been trained in the CLPE's Power of Pictures. They have also received in-service training from booking-making expert, Paul Johnson, so that children are developing their own book-making and publishing skills as part of the creative writing process.
Please click on the link below to find out more about the Power of pictures: