English
The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.
Aims
At St. Christopher’s we aim to develop pupils’ abilities within an integrated programme of Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing. Pupils will be given opportunities to develop their use, knowledge and understanding of spoken and written English within a broad and balanced curriculum with opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught English skills.
Pupils at St. Christopher’s will leave Year 6:
Statutory requirement
The new English programme of study (2014) is based on 4 areas:
The new National Curriculum is divided into 3 stages:-key stage 1 (years 1 and 2), Lower key stage 2 (years 3 and 4) and upper key stage 2 (years 5 and 6).
By the end of each stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes in the relevant programme of study.
In the Foundation stage children are given opportunities to:
At Key Stage 1 children learn to speak confidently and listen to what others have to say. They learn to read and write independently and with enthusiasm. They learn to use language to explore their own experiences and imaginary worlds. Children are given opportunities to speak and listen throughout all subject areas.
At Key Stage 2 children learn to change the way they write to suit different situations, purposes and audiences. They read a range of texts and respond to different layers of meaning in them.
Mrs Metcalfe
Read, Write, Inc Phonics
We follow the Read, Write Inc phonics scheme.
Read, Write Inc. Phonics teaches children to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. They learn to form each letter, spell correctly, and compose their ideas step-by-step.
We start by teaching phonics to the children in the Reception class. This means that they learn how to ‘read’ the sounds in words and how those sounds can be written down. This is essential for reading, but it also helps children learn to spell well. We teach the children simple ways of remembering these sounds and letters. Ask them to show you what these are.
The children also practise reading and spelling what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’ ‘said’ and ‘where’.
The extended writing within RWI timetable reflects the National Curriculum programmes of study e.g. a 3 day timetable is more weighted in transcription to match a Y1 curriculum. The 5 day timetable has more weighting in writing to reflect a later Year 1 +2 programmes of study. All children complete a piece of extended writing at the end of every timetable. As the children progress through RWI, they will be writing more extended composition each week.
We encourage children to use the spelling strategies, refer to the speed sound posters in all aspects of writing.
RWI Comprehension
When children in Years 2 and 3 have completed RWI phonics, they will have RWI Comprehension lessons. Read Write Inc. Comprehension is designed to inspire, to draw children in, and to make sure they want to keep reading. It builds their confidence in reading more widely through lots of practice and talk.
Ready, Steady, Write
Year 1 to Year 6 are taught English through the Ready, Steady, Write units.
Ready, Steady, Write empowers teachers to provide high-quality teaching of writing through children’s high-quality literature (Vehicle Texts). The units of work centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities. Several of these carefully selected Vehicle Texts have strong thematic links to the Science, History and Geography curriculum. They include :
These units have been carefully mapped out so the entire statutory curriculum for writing is covered for each year group and links closely with the Steps to Read, whole class reading units we use. They also enable us to draw upon the wider curriculum, which supports us to build a rich curriculum.
Other writing opportunities
Below, you can find photographs of some of the other writing opportunities we provide for our children.
Poetry Slam
Some of our year 4 children had a great opportunity to work with a local poet organised by the ‘Writing on the Wall’ team. They wrote amazing poems based around the theme I know, I wish, I will. These poems were performed in our first Poetry Slam in front of an audience of parents and pupils. It was a great success. All of the poems will be entered into the Wowfest competition. Hopefully we will have a winning group who will perform their poem at London’s Criterion Theatre in March.