The English curriculum is organised into the strands of Reading and Viewing, Writing and Speaking and Listening. The development of vocabulary underpins these three strands, with students continually increasing their vocabulary by building their knowledge of the world through experiences and texts. At Wallan Primary School we use the Victorian Curriculum to plan and implement differentiated units of work that cater for individual learning needs. For information regarding the Victorian Curriculum, please click here.

Reading and Viewing is taught daily. Students are explicitly taught the skills to read and comprehend texts. The key focuses are letter and sound knowledge, high frequency word recognition, strategies to use when decoding unfamiliar words and comprehension strategies. Each class has access to a wide range of quality literature in their own classroom library.

Writing sessions occur daily, providing students with regular opportunities to express their ideas in the written form. Writing is based on this key idea: “What I think I can say. What I say I can write. What I write can be read.” Students build their craft by working through the writing process; planning, drafting and revising pieces that may then be published. In the early years of schooling writing is heavily based on experiences. The structures of the genres of writing are taught explicitly, along with mechanics of writing. Students in Years 2-6 record their ideas and thinking in their individual Writer’s Notebook. These notebooks are used as the stimulus when students are choosing what they are going to write about during the Writer’s Notebooks units of work.

Speaking and Listening occurs all day, every day, across all areas of the curriculum. Students are taught the skills to communicate with their peers and adults. They are provided with many opportunities to speak in formal and informal situations; in small groups and to the whole class. They ask questions and respond to the questions of others.

A range of formative and summative assessments are used by teachers to target the needs of individual students. Students work towards achieving their targeted goals through explicit teaching, regular practise and feedback from their teacher.