The curriculum at Moorgate has been designed to ensure our children are fully equipped for the next stages in their education and also for life! Our school building and environment also supports this vision and has been designed specifically to ensure that our vision can become a reality. Our facilities include: A brand new school building equipped with all mod cons!! including:– a brand new library facility, a nurture room, forest schools area, extensive grounds and playgrounds and well-equipped classrooms. Additionally, the school promotes and actively takes part in a variety of extracurricular activities such as sports, music and the arts, home learning and much, much more! Finally, as part of our vision for the curriculum, we place a high value on enrichment, ensuring our children see their curriculum brought to life!English
The overarching aim for English in the National Curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The National Curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
- read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.
Reading Scheme
At Moorgate, reading lessons are explicitly taught to develop children’s comprehension. In addition to these, we use the Oxford Owl reading scheme to develop children’s word reading. From EYFS, we offer fully decodable books along with word comprehension books to ensure children are developing their ability to read and providing them opportunity to broader their vocabulary repertoire. To progress through the book bands, children are monitored and assessed regularly. For more information of the reading scheme we and for free additional eBook’s that you can read at home, visit:
Phonics Scheme
As pupils start Reception, we introduce them to ‘Floppy’s Phonics’, which is a detailed and systematic programme for teaching phonics skills aligned with Letters and Sounds. They will continue with this programme to ensure consistency into Year 1. The sequence of lessons allows the children to build their code knowledge and phonic skills in a way that allows them to progress smoothly with their reading. The aim of this is to ensure children are fluent readers by the age of 7. Pupils in Year 1 will individually take part in the Phonics screening check. It is designed to give teachers and parents information on how your child is progressing in phonics. We will then report your child’s result at the end of the summer term.
To access the Floppy’s Phonics resources, children can use the Oxford Owl website to find the book they have been working on each week.
Writing Scheme and SPaG
In teaching Writing, we do not currently follow a scheme. Instead, teachers use high quality texts as a basis for their teaching of Writing. The rationale behind this is to ensure children are exposed to a varied and wide range of literature and vocabulary as per our Curriculum Intent. Throughout the teaching of genres, children are also exposed to the required punctuation, grammar and spelling requirements that are associated with that genre. Children receive a daily spelling / grammar lesson within their timetable.
