English

“Reading is like breathing in. Writing is like breathing out.”

Pam Allyn- 

Includes: reading, writing, spelling and handwriting, speaking, listening

Intent

At St. Michael’s our main aim is to develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion. Our St. Michael's English curriculum strives to ensure that all children have the opportunity to become primary literate and progress to the best of their ability in speaking and listening, reading and writing. We recognise that every child has their own starting point upon entry into every year group and progress is measured inline with these starting points to ensure that every child can achieve. We believe that a secure and embedded understanding of basic skills is crucial to a high quality education and will give our children the tools they need to ‘shine brightly’ in their futures. Our use of high-quality texts, vocabulary-rich learning environments and a varied and engaging curriculum ensure the English progression of skills are met whilst developing a love of reading, creative writing and purposeful speaking and listening.

We place books, vocabulary and reading at the heart of everything we do, as tools to gain knowledge and develop emotional literacy. We mindfully endeavour to ensure that children develop a lifelong, healthy and enthusiastic attitude towards English. Aiming to equip our students with the necessary skills and passion to support them in their forthcoming secondary education.

Implementation

The 2014 National Curriculum and the 2023 Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) aims are embedded not only through our English curriculum, but also across the wider curriculum.

As a school, we have invested in high quality training for staff in the synthetic phonics programme Sounds Write which forms the foundation for children learning to read and write in the Early Years, and is continued to be reinforced throughout their education. This provides children with the skills they need to begin to read words, phrases and whole sentences as soon as possible. Learning is reinforced at home in EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2 where by children have access to carefully matched reading books to consolidate the code they are currently learning. Our children reread the same text multiple times to develop fluency. Alongside their independent reading of decodable books, our pupils have daily story time and are encouraged to read at home daily.

Our English curriculum and framework has been planned so that it provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion. We use a wide variety of core quality texts and resources, and immerse children in vocabulary rich environments, to not only motivate but also to inspire our children. Cross-curricular links with topic are also woven into and throughout the programme of study.

At St Michael’s we aim to inspire our pupils to become confident, enthusiastic and reflective readers, who appreciate the importance of reading as a life-long skill in the wider world, but also value books as a source of pleasure and enjoyment. Guided reading is taught with a whole class approach, studying a variety texts in depth which are sometimes complemented by our wider curriculum. We focus on ‘looking’, ‘thinking’ and ‘clue’ questions to drive children's curiosity and help them to make sense of the text. We have developed our own reading spine to ensure the children have high-quality, challenging and diverse books to read themselves and to have read to them. Books are widely celebrated in the classroom, and a love for reading is fostered through daily sharing of a class text, a book rich environment with a range of quality texts and displays to model the reading journey children have been on throughout the year.

As children develop fluency, we then encourage and support them to make their own, informed reading choices for their independent reading book. We ensure that our class libraries have a range of age-appropriate literature and we use the Sounds Write reading scheme books which systematically increase the level of challenge, vocabulary, and stamina as children work their way through them. Through our class libraries and Sounds Write books, we ensure our children have access to a wide range of authors, illustrators, genres, subject matter and formats to appeal them and provide a wide-range of reading experiences. It is through empowering our children to make their own choices, that we enhance the culture of reading for pleasure at St. Michael's.

Our writing curriculum develops progressively and ensures that children are taught how to write narrative, poetry and a range of non-fiction texts. Our children revisit and consolidate their skills through different units.

The aim of our 'writer's workshops' is to ensure children are explicitly taught about writing, so that children know how to be successful in writing themselves. In writing, the structure of our lessons are carefully considered. Each of our 'writer's workshop' sessions starts with a punctuation and grammar starter task that allows opportunities to retrieve and build on prior knowledge. . Each unit will begin by exploring a model text, developing an understanding of its key components. Children are then guided and supported, with vocabulary and ideas at the heart of each lesson, to co-construct a text themselves. It is here where the majority of our punctuation and grammar teaching also happens, all in context. After time has been spent developing the skills necessary to be successful writers, children then apply these skills to their own text. Once completed, the children are given time and taught the skills to edit and improve their work.

Children are also explicitly taught spelling in KS2 and handwriting in every year group. Children continue to use their phonic knowledge and transfer these skills to discrete spelling lessons which revisit the Sounds Write code. In Reception, children focus on forming their letters and numbers accurately, with the correct pencil grip, and then begin to learn joining in Year 1. By the end of Year 2, our children should have a comfortable and joined handwriting style. We use Letter-Join to ensure our teaching of handwriting is progressive and comprehensive.

Impact

The impact on our children is clear: progress, sustained learning and transferable skills as lifelong learners.

With the excellent foundation of Sounds Write supporting decoding, along with opportunities to develop fluency, children can comprehend what they have read, interacting with and make sense of a wide variety of rich texts, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. This allows them to become successful, fluent and confident readers forming transferable skills to cross-curricular activities.

With the consistent approach to the teaching of writing throughout the school, children are becoming more confident writers who will have accessed a range of genres and by the end of Key Stage 2. Teaching can focus on creativity, writer’s craft, sustained writing and manipulation of grammar and punctuation skills. Consolidation of these skills can be identified in cross-curricular work which demonstrates a deeper understanding of how and when specific grammar and punctuation skills are to be used.

The quality and effectiveness of English will be continually monitored and evaluated using NfER reading tests at the end of each term and regular writing moderations. The YARC reading test is also used as an additional assessment tool for the more vulnerable children. 

As children leave the St Michael’s family to go on to further their education and learning, we hope that their creativity, passion for English and high aspirations travel with them and continue to grow and develop as they shine brightly and stand out.