English

English INTENT statement

At Little Horsted Church of England Primary School, we aim to provide a language rich learning environment, which encourages and enables children to become fully literate, whilst gaining satisfaction and enjoyment from spoken and written language. Through effective planning, teaching and assessment we provide all our pupils with flexible opportunities for hearing, seeing, creating and responding to print at levels appropriate to their individual development, whilst fulfilling the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage and the National Curriculum. The English teaching we provide allows our children to fulfil their potential while giving them the skills to understand and use language in all its aspects. We aim to include and engage our pupils in high quality learning experiences using exciting diverse, rich texts which will foster passions for life long reading and enable them to embrace literature in its many forms; while also providing them with the confidence and competence to communicate effectively in both speech and writing.

“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.” – National Curriculum 2014

English curriculum

English curriculum overview

English policy

At Little Horsted, our English curriculum is designed to inspire confident, creative and capable writers. We follow The Write Stuff approach to provide clear structures, rich vocabulary and engaging stimuli for high‑quality writing, complemented by regular short‑burst writing opportunities that encourage imagination and independence.

To support spelling development, we use Spelling Shed, offering fun, targeted practice both in school and at home.

Handwriting is taught through Twinkl Handwriting, ensuring children develop fluent, legible, and consistent letter formation. Together, these elements create a vibrant and supportive English environment where every child can thrive.

Phonics

Our DFE-validated, complete systematic Phonics scheme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised, is delivered daily to all children Reception to Y2. This daily quality-first Phonics teaching follows a consistent teaching sequence, which is based upon the review, teach, practice, apply and review approach. This is supplemented with a variety of resources to ensure children’s phonic attainment allows them to become fluent readers as they progress through Early Years and Key Stage 1.

Please see our separate page for more information about Phonics.

Reading VIPERS

At Little Horsted, we want to encourage a love of reading and books. We teach children a variety of reading strategies including phonics, whole-word recognition and reading for meaning.

We teach reading comprehension skills using VIPERS questions.

What are VIPERS?

VIPERS is an acronym to aid the recall of the 6 reading domains as part of the UK’s reading curriculum. They are the key areas which we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts.

VIPERS stands for

Vocabulary

Inference

Prediction

Explanation

Retrieval

Sequence (KS1) or Summarise (KS2)

The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics: decoding, fluency, prosody etc. This is covered in our early reading scheme, Little Wandle.

If you would like more information on the type of VIPERS questions you can ask your child when listening to them read, please click on the links below:

KS1 VIPERS questions KS2 VIPERS questions

Useful resources

Year 1 & 2 spellings

Year 3 & 4 spellings

Year 5 & 6 spellings