At Exmoor Link Federation we strive to nurture children who are fully literate and articulate, and are prepared for their secondary education and later life. Through engaging lessons, we aim to foster a love of literacy and language and an enjoyment of learning. We challenge children of all abilities and ensure they make good progress in all areas of the English National Curriculum. They are encouraged to have a growth mind-set and to develop the skills of perseverance and resilience. Through reading in particular, pupils are given a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. We celebrate children’s hard work and effort, as well as their success. They are encouraged to revisit their work, making changes and developing their ideas to ensure they achieve their best.

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Here you can read our policies for each area of English 

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Reading

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Reading is a central part of all curricular areas in our school and is at the heart of our learning and teaching. We teach using high quality texts approved by the Local Authority to encourage children to immerse themselves into books, leading to excellent outcomes. Phonics is emphasised within the early teaching of reading and continued until children have reached a standard that allows them to access texts independently and confidently. Our children are taught and encouraged to read widely across a range of genres to establish an appreciation and genuine love of reading, to gain knowledge across the curriculum and to develop their comprehension skills. We aim for all pupils, by the end of their primary education, to be able to read fluently with confidence.

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Please find our letter for parents here

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Writing

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We believe that all our pupils should be able to effectively communicate their knowledge, ideas, experiences and feelings through their writing. We aim for all of our pupils, regardless of ability, to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style of writing for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. All teachers at our schools believe that every child should and is encouraged to, take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing good, joined handwriting by the time they are ready to move on to secondary school. All good writers “proofread and perfect” their work overtime so our pupils are taught to identify their own areas of strength and those requiring improvement with growing independence through proofreading and editing their work and through response to teachers marking.

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Phonics

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We teach phonics using the Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS) DfE accredited scheme. ELS was developed with the intent to ensure that ‘every child can read well, quickly’. ELS teaches children to read using a systematic synthetic phonics approach which our teachers implement within a learning environment that is rich in talk and story, where children experience and enjoy books and language whilst acquiring the skills to become fluent independent readers and writers. Phonic sessions are taught daily from Reception up to the end of KS1, with further interventions provided for children requiring further support to thrive.