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St. Catherine's CE Primary School

St. Catherine's CE Primary School
In God's Love, Together We Flourish

English

It is our responsibility to ensure that pupils become confident and competent users of the English Language. Our fundamental task is to teach your child to speak, read and write English effectively.  Great emphasis is placed upon phonics-based literacy from the outset.

The English Curriculum is delivered using Curriculum 2014 for English for Key Stages 1 and 2. In Foundation Stage the EYFS Statutory Framework.

In all year groups the majority of English work is done in the class, with work being differentiated to match the needs of different children where required. Guided and supported work, alongside interventions are used to support children who are not on track to meet age related expectations or progress targets.

Writing

We teach English as whole class lessons, so that all children have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum.

In Nursery, we follow Pathways to Write. This is based on engaging books which spark curiosity. It allows for vocabulary development, mark making and letter formation and oral rehearsal (talk, role-play and storytelling before writing). It has a mastery approach, meaning skills are regularly revisited to ensure learning ‘sticks’.

In the summer term, pupils who will be moving into Reception in September begin Read, Write Inc (RWI).

In Reception and Y1, pupils follow Read, Write Inc for their phonics and writing. They work in homogenous groups, which are regularly assessed and updated. At this time of day (9-10:30am) Reception and Y1 share continuous provision and adults work across both classes. Throughout this time, several focused phonics groups take place and the rest of the children access both indoor and outdoor activities and areas. As well as the structured writing in RWI sessions, there are many opportunities for writing within the provision in addition to activities designed to help children develop their fine and gross motor skills. Throughout the week, pupils are expected to complete at least two writing ‘challenges’, where they practise their writing skills with support from an adult within the continuous provision.

In addition to RWI sessions, Reception and Y1 complete Drawing Club sessions. These usually take place in the afternoon. Drawing Club is an initiative that integrates drawing activities into the learning curriculum, particularly aimed at young children in Early Years and Key Stage 1 (KS1). It leverages the natural inclination of children to express themselves through art, using this as a bridge to develop their writing skills.

Each week children will read and enjoy a different book. These may be fiction or non-fiction and may link to other areas of the curriculum or simply be a great book to spark inspiration. We then explore new and ambitious vocabulary linked to the story. Children are not expected to use this in their writing but they may choose to. The intension is to develop their vocabulary range, which they may be able to understand and use orally before using in their own writing. Pupils will then complete their drawings and discuss them, again developing their skills of oracy. These drawings will then be the inspiration for their writing for that day. This will begin with simple captions in Reception and develop to a series of sentences by the end of Y1.

From Y2 to Y6 all classes follow Pathways to Write. This has a proven methodology built around units of work which develop vocabulary, reading and writing skills through the mastery approach. The units provide clear detailed lesson plans and resources, linked to high-quality texts to ensure engaging and purposeful English lessons. Effective teaching strategies to challenge greater depth writers are included within each unit of work.

Within each unit, there are new age-related skills for children to work on and master through a variety of activities and writing opportunities. By limiting the number of skills the units contain, children can really hone their writing techniques, providing excellent, focused assessment opportunities for teachers.

At regular intervals, there are suggestions for extending greater depth writers within the context of the lesson. These are simple, manageable and effective.

Although the units provide detailed lesson plans, teachers are well-skilled at adapting these to meet the needs of their pupils. This includes reducing the number of extended writing opportunities to allow for more time to practise the sentence-level skills needed to ensure pupils are confident enough to include the relevant skills in their extended pieces.

 

 

Phonics

Please follow our phonics link for a wealth of information about this.