English
Thaxted Primary School are passionate that all children within the school should receive a high quality education encompassing all aspects of English: reading, writing and speaking. On concluding their years at primary school, the children need to be able to read, write and communicate orally to enable them to convey their thoughts and ideas in each medium. As the National Curriculum states this will enable them “to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually.” More than this, it is our aim to develop a passion for English which will act as a springboard to later life, allowing children to access a secondary curriculum across the range of subjects, and continue to utilise and hone skills both for work and pleasure.
The objectives of our curriculum centre around the three strands of reading, writing and speaking. All of these are explored using the mediums of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. There is clear progression shown between the ascending year groups, building on the skills learnt in the previous year. There are clear non-negotiables for each year group where the minimum expectations must be met, but at the other end of the scale, there is clear scope for children to extend and master their knowledge.
All work undertaken at Thaxted Primary School is guided by our six “R’s” namely respect, reasoning, resilience, responsibility, reflection and resourcefulness. Our curriculum is tailored to ensure that the children use all of these values. Children are encouraged to be responsible for their own work, yet have the resilience to ask for help when required. In addition, we are keen to expose children to reading that they might not otherwise experience, particularly through guided reading and class reading books. There is a strong emphasis on reading for pleasure and enjoying writing as a craft – taking the time to edit and re-draft where appropriate.
We are very proud to have a Patron of Reading, successful author Rosemary Hayes, to work with the children to encourage their love of reading and writing. In addition, our superhero reading scheme fills the children full of enthusiasm – we want them to learn and have fun!