St
Winifred's Primary School
English
Statement of Intent
Intent
At St Winifred’s Catholic Primary School, English is at the heart of our curriculum with the intent that all children will develop a love of reading and become creative and technically skilled writers. Children will also be confident communicators and and will develop critical thinking skills. We intend that all children see themselves in high quality texts and we choose books that reflect our diverse community.
Through our English curriculum, we teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the real world. By giving this context to their learning, the children understand the value of English to them now, and in their futures.
We want our children to have a positive attitude towards communication and to be able to independently express their emotions and their ideas. We recognise the importance of nurturing a culture where children take pride in their writing, and can write clearly and accurately, adapting their language and style for a range of contexts. They will express themselves clearly using and acquiring a wide range of vocabulary and the appropriate conventions for reading, writing and spoken language. We intend that our pupils develop a love of reading and develop the skills to become confident readers, reading for pleasure and for life.
Our aim is for ALL learners to achieve their full potential in English and we are committed to providing the scaffolds and challenge needed in order for our children to achieve this.
Implementation
Reading
We aim to develop a strong community of readers at St Winifred’s Catholic Primary School. We value the importance of books and literature in enabling children to become confident, happy and enthusiastic readers and writers. Children are given the opportunity to experience high-quality literature and to listen to a broad range of ambitious vocabulary. We use ‘The Power of Reading approach’ as recommended by the Centre for Learning in Primary Education (CLPE) and texts from the Literacy Curriculum. All of our staff promote and celebrate a love of reading through modelling this themselves and through author visits, assemblies and other activities such as World Book Day. The children learn to read through a mixture of individual and whole-class reading. Depending on what Key Stage the children are in, three or five reading lessons a week take place, so that the reading skills are explicitly taught and modelled for that particular year group. These reading lessons incorporate high-quality texts and include fiction, non-fiction and poetry. In addition to this, daily reading of a story or chapter book is read aloud to the children in each class. It is essential that children read at home too; we understand the vital role played by parents and carers in the development of reading and writing and in the nurturing of positive habits, particularly in attitudes towards reading. We welcome this and value their contribution.
Phonics
We teach phonics in EYFS & KS1 using Little Wandle Letters & Sounds revised programme. In the nursery, we provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences in order for all children to meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception. In Reception and Year 1 we teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers. Blending and segmenting words are the primary skills for reading and spelling and children need to be secure with Phase 6 by the end of Year 2. Children are given time to consolidate their knowledge of the new sounds that they have learnt within a 20-minute reading session which occurs three times a week outside of the phonics lesson. These sessions are in small groups and are streamed for targeted learning. Year 2 teaches phonics daily, using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised in the Autumn term and then moving onto the Spelling Seeds programme. Children who require additional support with phonics will be placed on a robust 1 to 1 tutoring programme until the gap is closed. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation (SPAG)
Spellings are taught weekly. Grammar and punctuation sessions are taught each week through our whole book literacy approach and applied to independent writing. SPAG is also taught independently when necessary.
Writing
We have a rigorous and well-organised English curriculum and framework, that follows the National Curriculum aims and that provides many opportunities for writing for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
We teach writing using quality texts from a range of genres, including fiction and non-fiction texts, following the ‘Literary Curriculum’ and CLPE sequences. Our complete, thematic approach to teaching writing places children’s literature at its core. As a whole-school approach, children explore high-quality literary texts and experience unique, significant authors as they move through our school. Writing tasks are specific and meaningful and often meet the purpose to engage children and to illustrate how their writing skills can be applied to real-life contexts.
Writing is a transferable skill across all subjects applied across the curriculum. We therefore also immerse children in a termly history and geography-themed topic and encourage cross-curricular links. Children are expected to transfer their key topic knowledge and vocabulary into their writing and vice versa to transfer their spelling, grammar and punctuation knowledge into their topic work. We expect the high standards for writing in literacy lessons to be evident within the work in all books.
Impact
It is intended that at St Winifred’s School, children will:
- be confident in the art of speaking and listening and be able to use discussion to communicate and further their learning
- see themselves reflected in high-quality texts
- be able to read fluently both for pleasure and to further their learning.
- enjoy writing across a range of genres
- have a wide vocabulary and be adventurous with vocabulary choices within their writing
- leave primary school being able to effectively apply spelling rules and patterns they have been taught
- make good and better progress from their starting points to achieve their full potential
- pass the phonics screening check in year 1
and that:
- the percentage of pupils working at age-related expectations within each year group will be in line with national averages or better
- The impact of our English curriculum is measured through the monitoring cycle in school.
Our curriculum provision for each year group and our English Policy