Victoria Park Junior School English Curriculum 

At Victoria Park Junior School we want children to be confident writers and life-long readers. We teach English every day along with separate sessions for handwriting, spelling, grammar and reading.

Reading at VPJS

We promote independent reading, reading for information and a love of reading through lessons and a range of strategies/activities including guided reading sessions, sharing class books and whole school reading events such as ‘World Book Day'.

Our 2021 WBD Book Cover Competition Winners

Our 2020 Circus Themed World Book Day

Reading Records are completed weekly to showcase the fabulous reading taking place. The reading records are made of two different types of tasks. A record of what has been read with a reading skill comment or a creative reading activity.

We are very fortunate to have a wonderful library space which has a fantastic range of texts. Each class visits the library weekly and can choose up to 2 books to take home. In addition to a library book, children still developing their reading fluency and decoding skills with have a colour banded book.

Writing at VPJS

We provide a rich curriculum which adheres to the National Curriculum requirements, while allowing staff creativity to choose themes which will create interest and challenge the children.  

We use a book based approach to writing. We focus on a core text (supported by picture books, videos & poetry).  Children explore, respond to and analyse quality texts, which have rich language and model the desired structures and conventions. Within this context, children can practice learnt spelling, grammar and punctuation rules and apply these in their written tasks. 

Year 3 texts

Year 4 texts

Year 5 texts

Year 6 texts

We believe that, in order to become competent writers, children need to develop and master a range of different skills as well as having the confidence to experiment and take risks to apply these skills effectively. 

To develop children’s grammar knowledge, skills are taught both discretely and within a text. To develop spelling, we have an investigative approach to spelling. This means children will explore a spelling rule each week and apply that skill to a new set of words. In addition, each pupil has a Spelling Shed Account. This allows them access to a range of games linked with their weekly spelling rules.