English Curriculum

At Farnborough Road Infant School we are readers, writers, poetry performers and actors! We want all our children to love English. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be authors, journalists, song writers and TV presenters.

We want to foster a love of literature in all of our children, encouraging pupils to read widely and independently and equipping them with the skills needed to do so. We want to build a community of writers, nurturing children who are able to express themselves succinctly, confidently and creatively. We want our pupils to build and use an extensive and rich vocabulary, giving them the best possible chance of future success.

Curriculum Intent

Our English curriculum promotes curiosity and empowers our children to become independent and resilient learners. 

The FRIS English curriculum not only meets National Curriculum requirements but will provide memorable English lessons that will develop their cultural capital and prepare them for the next stage in their education.

During Book Week, all pupils and staff immerse themselves in books and stories, dressing up as their favourite story characters on World Book Day and share their most loved books. Topics are enhanced by theatre companies visiting our school and every half term as part of our Read to Succeed programme, groups of children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are selected to read to Archie the ‘real reading dog’ as well as taking home the class reading dogs every weekend.

Curriculum Implementation

The English curriculum has  carefully planned  learning opportunities which ensure in each year group there is a progression of skills, understanding and knowledge. The curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment opportunities for each year group ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning, knowledge and skills. 

Classic and modern texts, poetry and stories are at the heart of the English curriculum. Drama sessions are intertwined into topics to develop vital speaking and listening skills and writing skills are taught and applied progressively through a rich variety of age appropriate writing opportunities from Nursery up to Year 2.

Curriculum Impact

We strive for every child to achieve their full potential in English, develop a love of literature, be ready for their next stage in learning and inspire aspirations for their future career paths.

At Farnborough Road Infant School, we are Reading Champions, Wonderful Writers and Clever Communicators!

                                                        Phonics Teaching at FRIS 

Daily phonics lessons are taught in Reception and Years 1 and for some children in Year 2.

In the Early Years, phonics is taught using our bespoke FRIS phonics scheme. Children learn through a kinesthetic approach, learning the sound, the Jolly Phonics story, and song, and the letter shape for each phoneme. The order phonemes are taught allows children to quickly sound and blend words for reading and writing. 

Teachers use a planned structure to lessons allowing opportunities to blend phonemes and digraphs to read words and segment words to write them.

Phonics is taught in four/five differentiated groups in Reception and Year 1 allowing phonics to be taught in the phases and support children’s specific needs.

Children in Year 1 and Year 2 have achieved better than other children in Sefton and Nationally in the years 2016-2023 in Phonics.

Due to the COVID pandemic, there haven't been any statutory tests undertaken in the years 2019-20, 2020-21

                                   Reading at FRIS-Read to Succeed!

‘Read to Succeed’ is a school initiative aimed at improving the literacy skills of all our children. We believe reading is the key to success and want to help all children develop a passion for reading. We want every child to read at least 5 times a week.

Research suggests that ‘Children who read for pleasure are likely to do better in Maths and English than those who rarely read in their free time.’ (BBC News and Education).

We have invested in a variety of reading schemes to inspire our children; as all children learn in different ways and we all enjoy different styles of books. Our reading scheme books are used for guided reading sessions in school and include Oxford Reading Tree (Hero Academy, Floppy's Phonics, InFact, Explore, Word Sparks and Story Sparks), Read Write Inc, Story World classics as well as a range of poetry themed books.

As well as providing children with plenty of opportunities to read a variety of texts in school, children will learn a set of Common Exception Words related to the phonic phase they are working within, building up their confidence and fluency and developing that all important passion for reading.

We ask that parents spend a small amount of time each day reading school reading books, library books or any reading material. Our motto is 'Strive for Five', aiming for at least five reads every week. This is documented in individual reading diaries.  

To promote bedtime stories and reading with siblings each class has their own reading dog and Archie the real reading dog visits every half term to praise those children who have made great progress that half term. 

Please see our Help your child at home section for more information about reading at FRIS and copies of our Common Exception Words. 

Children in Year 1 and Year 2 have achieved better than other children in Sefton and Nationally in the years 2016 to 2023 in Reading at the Expected and Greater Depth Standard.

Due to the COVID pandemic, there haven't been any statutory tests undertaken in the years 2019-20,2020-21

There is no National comparison data from 2023-24

                                                              Writing at FRIS 

We aim for our children to become confident, independent writers through offering a range of guided and independent writing opportunities.

Children are initially taught how to form letters correctly through first using large actions and through a variety of gross and fine motor activities ‘Motor Magic’. Children will move on to form the letters to write their own names and then on to writing simple words and phrases appropriate to the individual child. Children are then taught to use their English skills to begin to write a wide variety of words and combine them into simple sentences. Repetitive sentence work encourages the children to use phonic strategies to write in guided writing sessions and to write independently through a variety of role play opportunities.

In Key Stage One Children are taught to write for different purposes and in a variety of genre. A weekly guided writing task has a focus on key English skills. The classes are then encouraged to consolidate skills taught in a variety of independent writing opportunities throughout the week. Children write at greater length and with an increased stamina combining spelling, phonic and grammatical knowledge to display their English skills

Children by the end of Year 2 have achieved better than other children in Sefton and Nationally in the years 2017 to 2023 in Writing at the Expected and at the Greater Depth Standard.

Due to the COVID pandemic, there haven't been any statutory tests undertaken in the years 2019-20, 2020-21

There is no National comparison data from 2023-24