English

 

English Curriculum Vision

 

At St Anne (Stanley) CE Primary School, our school vision is to provide our children and families with a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment where they are valued and can flourish. With God’s guidance, we all come together to learn in a loving Christian community, where we strive for our children to become well-prepared and confident members of our school, church parish and the wider community.

Our curriculum vision for English reflects this aim to be prepared for life and learning. Through our learning and teaching in English, we develop children’s ability as assured speakers, readers and writers, who are confident in using these skills across the wider curriculum throughout their school career and in later life. Consequently, we strive to develop a love of language, vocabulary, writing and a passion for reading.  A systematic programme of teaching and learning ensures that each child reach their potential in speaking and listening, reading and writing. As a school, we strive to ensure that work in speaking and listening, reading and writing is fully integrated.  Our aim is for all children to learn to speak confidently and listen to what others have to say; read and write independently and with enthusiasm; use ambitious and accurate language to explore their own experiences and imaginary worlds.

Reading is central to our curriculum vision for English and we strive to ensure that all children will become successful, accurate and fluent readers by the end of Key Stage Two.  We believe this is achievable through a combination of strong, high quality, discrete phonics teaching; whole class shared reading to develop vocabulary and language comprehension; and developing reading accuracy, fluency and comprehension skills through independent reading practice, guided reading and whole class sessions. We also promote reading as a constant in pupils lives; we encourage children read both at school and at home and see reading as inspiring and pleasurable.  All of this helps to promote an authentic ‘Reading for Pleasure’ culture, which we constantly promote.

 

About the English Lead

My name is Mr. Lineton and I am extremely happy and very proud to be English Lead at our wonderful school, St. Anne (Stanley). I love books, I love stories and I really love reading. I always have.

When I was a young boy, my dad would read for hours in his chair and I would sometimes watch him. I was fascinated with how someone could remain so quiet, for so long and not be bored. He would read stories about Africa, where he spent some time when he was younger.

When my dad went to the library, I would tag along and borrow books to read too.  Even the quiet of the library and the thousands of books I could choose from was fascinating to me. I would read books on the long bus journey to school and also back home again later. I decided I liked reading and started enjoying losing myself in the worlds the stories in my books created. When I discovered ‘Elidor’ by Alan Garner, I realised how powerful fantasy stories were and how much I loved the idea of the impossible happening in books. I read it over and over again. It was so strange and imaginative. It was just brilliant!

Later, I moved on to reading ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’ and others by Garner, which were great too, but it was Elidor that inspired me.  There was just something about a group of children finding a unicorn running wild in the modern city streets, which captivated me. From that moment on, I was hooked on books. I devoured the stories of J. R. R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Susan Cooper and of course, Alan Garner. I have enjoyed losing myself in stories and have treasured books ever since.

My top four children’s books of all time (in no particular order):

             Elidor

by Alan Garner

Charlotte’s Web

by E. B. White

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

by J.K. Rowling

Danny, Champion of the World

by Roald Dahl     

                 

After trying out many different jobs when I was a younger, I decided to go to Liverpool Institute of Higher Education (now ‘Hope University’) and study to be a primary school teacher. I studied English, education and art. I really enjoyed my English studies and was particularly inspired by a ‘Children’s Literature’ course, where I got the chance to read lots of excellent children’s books and then talk about them with other English students.  After getting my degree, I started teaching in Bootle in the early 90s and then moved to St. Anne’s a few years later.  I have been fortunate enough to teach here ever since, despite helping out in other local schools for some of that time. Throughout my time as a teacher, I have always shared my passion for books and reading with children in my class, making sure books are valued, celebrated and enjoyed at every opportunity.

Our school has thousands of excellent books and hundreds of excellent readers – children and staff. Our children and our staff are always so enthusiastic about books and this inspires my own continual love of reading.  As the children I teach become more passionate about books, so do I. I am a dad myself and I have always encouraged my children to read. When they were younger, our favourite part of the day was story time, just before bed. My children would insist that I did the voices of the characters.  Our house has so many books now, we have nowhere left to put them!

Nowadays, I particularly enjoy reading most fiction, football books, Stephen King (much underrated), Terry Pratchett, autobiographies, biographies and anything by Sir Ken Robinson. I have so many favourite books, it would be impossible to choose just one.

Some of my favourite grown-up books that I have read in recent years (in no particular order):

The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

1984

by George Orwell

    A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini

Red or Dead

by David Peace

 

‘I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.’   

(Roald Dahl)

 

‘Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.’

(Mason Cooley)

 

‘The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that

 you learn, the more places you’ll go.’

(Dr. Seuss)

 

If there is one piece of advice I could give to anyone, young or old, it is… READ!

S. Lineton (2024)

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Click on the links below to view our curriculum information for English

 

English Policy 2024

English Curriculum Whole School Overview 2024

Overview of Main Texts Studied 2024-2025

English-Progression-Map-Reading-

English-Progression-Map-Grammar-and-Punctuation   

English-Progression-Map-Writing

English Year Group Coverage Checker    

Statutory Requirements for English

Statutory Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage

For EYFS Statutory Guidance please refer to Areas of Learning within the above document which link directly to English which are Communication and Language, Physical Development and Literacy.

Other useful sites we use…

Reading Plus

Lexia

Oxford Reading Tree

Oak Academy

Education City

 

                                Reading Ambassadors

Our Reading Ambassadors are an important part of our learning community.  These volunteers, from Year Two up to Year Six, meet regularly with Mr. Lineton (English Lead) to discuss everything about reading and books in our school.

So far this year, our Reading Ambassadors have devised and run competitions to encourage reading for pleasure in all classes, encouraged and advised classmates on great books to read and have helped run our Autumn Term Book Fair.  Our Reading Ambassadors display outside the school hall has regular updated information about our latest projects.  

 

English on Twitter:       View older tweets #stannestanleyEnglish