At LJS, we strive to provide the very best learning opportunities for our pupils. Our English Curriculum embraces a whole school approach to the teaching of English that places children’s literature at its core.

Writing @ LJS

Over the four years a pupil spends at LJS, they will explore at least 48 literary texts and experience at least 40 unique significant authors as they move through the school.

Using a book as a stimulus, the pupils will learn the fundamental skills of writing composition, grammar, punctuation and vocabulary, as well as coverage of spelling, phonics and reading comprehension which will be applied within a wide variety of written outcomes in line with the expectations of the National Curriculum.

Take a look at the books we will be covering this year:

Subject

Y3 Term 1

Y3 Term 2

Y3 Term 3

Y3 Term 4

Y3 Term 5

Y3 Term 6

English

The First Drawings

Leon and the Place Between

The BFG

The Tear Thief

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Escape from Pompeii

Cinderella of the Nile

TBC

Subject

Y4 Term 1

Y4 Term 2

Y4 Term 3

Y4 Term 4

Y4 Term 5

Y4Z Term 6

English

The Iron Man by Ted Hughes

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold

FaRther by Grahame Baker Smith

Until I met Dudley Roger McGough

Winter’s Child by Angela McAllister

The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis

The Lion and the Unicorn by Shirley Hughes

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

Subject

Y5 Term 1

Y5 Term 2

Y5 Term 3

Y5 Term 4

Y5 Term 5

Y5 Term 6

English

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Modicai Gerstein

Robot Girl by Malorie Blackman

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Hidden Figures

The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan

The Lost Happy Endings by Carol Ann Duffy

TBC Freedom Bird

TBC Kasper

TBC

Subject

Y6 Term 1

Y6 Term 2

Y6 Term 3

Y6 Term 4

Y6 Term 5

Y6 Term 6

English

The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The Promise by Nicola Davies

Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins

Suffragette: The Battle for Equality by David Roberts

The Boy in the Tower by Polly Yo-Hen

The Beautiful Lie by Irfan Master

The Three Little Pigs Project by The Guardian

Click on a year group to see some of this year's wonderful English work.

Sadly, our academic year 2019-2020 was cut short by COVID-19. Here is the fantastic work our pupils achieved last year in English - Click on the terms below:

Year 3 English 2019-20 Autumn Term Spring Term

Year 4 English 2019-20 Autumn Term Spring Term

Year 5 English 2019-20 Autumn Term Spring Term

Year 6 English 2019-20 Autumn Term Spring Term

Reading @ LJS

At LJS, we prioritise children having access to high-quality fiction and non-fiction texts to establish a love of reading that we hope will last throughout their lives.

Reading for pleasure is at the forefront of our curriculum. Every week, children have time to read, discuss, share and critique what they have been reading. Children are read aloud to daily and each class has a class reader - a book for children to simply listen and enjoy. Fluency and reading stamina is developed across all areas of the curriculum.

Take a look at some of the books the children are reading across the school:

Year 3 Year 5

Year 4 Year 6

VIPERS

Vocabulary, inference, prediction, explain, retrieval and summarise (sequence in Y3) is used by all.

Teachers plan questions based on these domains, which are presented in a variety of ways to ensure skills are embedded.

Teachers model ‘thinking out loud’ process, orally running through the skills needed to answer questions, referencing success criteria and verbalising answers before writing anything down.

Spelling at LJS

At LJS, we want our pupils to be confident spellers: applying their spelling knowledge and skills to their everyday writing.

In September 2020, we introduced the RWI Spelling programme: a robust, consistent and progressive spelling curriculum for all of our pupils, building upon a sound phonic knowledge. Click on the RWI Spelling logo below for more information.

In addition, we use the Spelling Shed App to support children's spelling. Every pupil has their own log in details. Click in the image to find out more about Spelling Shed.