The teaching of English, of reading, writing and communicating, is always given a high priority within our schedule for Continued Professional Development retaining a relentless focus on the teaching of key skills and fostering children's love of literature, of the spoken and written word, the simple pleasure of reading and of seeing words becoming actions used for pleasure, entertainment and communication.

We aim to send our pupils out as articulate young people with the confidence to listen, to engage and to share their thoughts and ideas.

Professional Development is planned in response to monitoring and evaluation - in-house and external and to local and national initiatives and agenda.  We also make use of Lesson Study, Coaching Pairs and Thinkpieces to enhance CPD.   In the last twelve months, professional development has included:-

• Whole staff training on language structures - using these orally, using these contextually within subject disciplines and applying these to writing
• Whole staff training on vocabulary
• Subject leader training on developing Tier 3 vocabulary within subjects
• The pedagogy of reading
• Whole Class Reading
• The teaching of phonics
• Salesbury - a reading school
• Talk 5 Project - for Year 5 teachers
• Direct work with the English Consultant - Year 3/4 and Year 5/6
• English Subject Leader Networks
• Headteacher English Briefings
• Integrating the classics and etymology
• Teaching Live with Pie Corbett - 3 Classes

Research into Action

For the last twelve months, the English Subject Leader and Assistant Head has studied through the Chartered College of Teaching Programme with a focus on vocabulary.  Having successfully graduated, she is now further developing this research so that it has impact across the school as part of her research aspect of teacher appraisal