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:

• Reading and writing with confidence, fluency and understanding.
• With a love of reading and a desire to read for enjoyment.
• Understanding a range of text types and genres.
• Able to write in a variety of styles and forms that are appropriate to the situation.

Statutory requirement

The new English programme of study (2014) is based on 4 areas:

• Spoken language
• Reading
• Writing
• Spelling, grammar and punctuation

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:

• Speak and listen and represent ideas in their activities
• Use communication, language and English in every part of the curriculum
• Become immersed in an environment rich in print and opportunities to communicate

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

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.

Read to Write

Year 1 to Year 6 are taught English through the Read to Write units.

Read to 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 :

• Clear Sequential Episodes of Learning
• Example Texts (greater depth WAGOLL)
• Learning Objectives that link to the teaching sequence (Immerse, Analyse, Plan Write) 
• Vocabulary Learning
• Contextualised Spelling, Grammar & Punctuation
• Writer’s Knowledge Linked to National Standards
• Sentence Accuracy Work Linked to National Standards
• Progressions Documents with Year Group Expectations
• Reflecting on Unit Outcomes: Planning for Next Steps
• Example Planning Format
• Wider Reading for the Wider Curriculum
• A Wealth of Resources Linked to the National Standards
• Explicit Links to the National Curriculum

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.