Welcome to English at Gorsemoor

It is our belief, that the purpose of education is to provide young people with the knowledge and skills to prepare children for their diverse working lives, build character, teach knowledge for its own intrinsic value and ignite a love of learning.  We believe that English is the bedrock of our curriculum.  The ability to read unlocks a wealth of information across the whole curriculum and beyond, allowing our pupils to travel to far off places, discover endless fascinating facts and see the world from a different perspective.  Writing enables them to communicate this knowledge and their own ideas, opinions and feelings. We aim to provide pupils with a rich bank of vocabulary and speaking and listening skills to enable them to express these thoughts and views considerately and effectively.  At Gorsemoor Primary School, we strive to promote the relationship between reading and writing and encourage a life-long love of literature, which will continue to inspire them throughout their futures.    

English: unlocking the voices of others; facilitating our own.

Reading

At Gorsemoor Primary School we teach reading through a Whole Class Reading approach, allowing all pupils to experience and appreciate a rich variety of texts and develop key comprehension skills.  Each year group follows a 'reading journey' throughout the year, making links across the curriculum and exposing our pupils to a variety of carefully selected literature.  We also recognise and actively promote the importance of reading for pleasure and aim to instill in pupils a lifelong love of reading and an understanding of the relationship between reading and writing. We foster a love for reading through daily story time, book club sessions held in our wonderful school library and utilising reading ambassadors to inspire pupils to love reading across the school.

Through Whole Class Reading from Years 1-6 pupils are introduced to the Reading VIPERS (Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval and Sequencing / Summarising).  This consistent approach throughout school enables pupils to become secure in each skill as they are introduced and further consolidated. Through reading lessons, pupils are exposed to a wide variety of texts taken from a range of sources including whole texts, excerpt, newspapers and magazines as well as video and picture stimuli.  

The Reading VIPERS focus on each of the following skills: