Seven Mills
Primary School
Ambitious, Compassionate
& Empowered
Seven Mills's English Curriculum aims to:
foster a life-long love of reading and writing through rich, varied and exciting learning opportunities for children
engage children in purposeful reading and writing across the curriculum
enrich children’s vocabulary
provide an engaging curriculum in line with the requirements of the revised National Curriculum
provide a robust assessment approach, centred on formative assessment
At Seven Mills, we adopt a cross-curricular approach to the teaching of English. English units are based on high quality texts which link to the half-term’s topic. Each unit of learning includes a range of non-fiction and fiction writing opportunities, with a main end writing outcome linked to the text. Opportunities for writing poetry are also developed at least once per half term.
At Seven Mills, we recognise the importance of early reading and know that becoming a fluent, skilled and attentive reader starts at the earliest stages. We ensure that we have a rigorous approach to teaching reading to support children in developing the skills required, as well as growing a love of reading. In every classroom:
Phonics is taught consistently and rigorously through the Jolly Phonics Fully Synthetic Phonics Scheme.
Jolly phonics songs are available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmMoFbhpFk4. A parent guide for how to pronounce the sounds can be found at: https://youtu.be/-ksblMiliA8
Daily 1:1 Reading takes place in EYFS, Daily Supported Reading takes places in Year 1 and Year 2 currently, while whole class Reading takes place in KS2
Clear intervention programmes take place for any child who is falling behind in Reading/Phonics or needs support with developing fluency
There is a vibrant reading display in each class, showing the reading skills where appropriate
Teachers read a class book to the children for 15 minutes every day
To further develop a love of reading, children:
Have access to the school library and a 30 minute session with the school librarian every week
Celebrate World Book Day
Partake in a poetry slam where every child learns a poem off by heart, having an opportunity to perform these poems to others.
We focus on the 7 Skills of 7 Mills - clarifying, retrieving, predicting, summarising, inferring, evaluating and making links.