The teaching of English at HGS is designed to instil in children a love of speaking and listening, reading and writing that will last them a lifetime. Giving pupils the key knowledge in English enables them to access material in all curriculum areas, and provides a foundation for their learning throughout their school career.
To achieve this, teachers are focused on making English interesting and exciting, engaging the pupils with the joy and wonder of books and piquing their imagination and creativity.
At HGS, we view the teaching of English as a fundamental part of the holistic development of the child, fostering positive behaviours and attitudes toward learning, and providing key knowledge, to benefit pupils throughout their education and beyond. We value the importance of vocabulary and language acquisition whether this is through our systematic teaching of reading words through sounds using the RWI scheme in the Early Years and KS1 or appreciating our rich and varied literary heritage in KS2.
Instilling a love of reading leads to children writing with greater confidence. We strive for high expectations and encourage high standards of written work across all subject areas allowing children to aspire in all areas of the curriculum. As speaking and listening is a key element of language development, we place great importance on our pupils becoming confident orators. Opportunities to present and perform to an audience in the classroom, to parents and the wider community are integrated into our curriculum. With thorough preparation, our pupils relish these occasions which may also involve Music or dance.