'Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.' Proverbs 22:6
English
Intent
Here at St Nicholas’ Church of England Primary School, we have created an English curriculum that encourages our children to become enthusiastic and engaged learners. We have worked hard to provide our children with rich and varied learning opportunities that help them to become confident and enthusiastic pupils. We want our children to have a positive attitude towards communication and to be able to independently express their emotions and ideas.
We strive to teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the outside world. By giving this context to their learning, the children understand the value of English to them now, and in their futures.
Our English Curriculum is built on the foundations of the National Curriculum.
The 2014 National Curriculum for English aims to ensure that all children:
- read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate
At St Nicholas these skills are embedded within English lessons and developed consistently over time. We are committed to ensuring that all children enjoy English and to experience success in the subject. We also encourage resilience and acceptance that struggle is often a necessary step in learning – a growth mindset.
Implementation
At St Nicholas we want all our pupils to be capable readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their English skills to other curriculum subjects and who are prepared for the next steps in their education.
Our English lessons develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary. English is often taught in a cross-curricular way, linking up with other areas of the curriculum.
We teach our pupils to speak clearly, to convey their ideas fluently and confidently. We know the value of excellent vocabulary and this is developed and practised across our curriculum constantly. We encourage pupils to express their ideas, discuss their ideas and to develop more sophisticated vocabulary. Our pupils are encouraged to read for pleasure and to read widely through our reading scheme and school library.
We follow ‘Letters and Sounds’ for our phonics programme. Phonic awareness helps the development of reading by segmenting and blending sounds and the children will be heard reading regularly, both individually and in groups. Our guided reading sessions cover a wide variety of both fiction and non-fiction books and help to advance the children’s comprehension skills. Parents are given reading guidance and clear expectations about reading at home. Children’s reading efforts are celebrated through our weekly ‘Star Reader’ awards which are prominently displayed in our School Hall.
We develop writing skills so that our children have the stamina and ability to write at the age expected standard. To support children in moving towards independent writing we provide a wide range of activities including the use of film and imagery, music, ICT, modelled, shared and guided writing, peer assessment and discussion. We provide varied and exciting opportunities for writing for purpose and we encourage pupils to see themselves as authors and poets. We promote the importance of written work by providing a writing purpose and opportunities for children’s writing to be read aloud and listened to by an audience. Every half term one child from each class is celebrated as a ‘Star Writer’ and their work is prominently displayed in the School Entrance.
Handwriting sessions are regularly incorporated into the English lessons. Writing is an integral part of our curriculum. In Key Stage 2 if children’s handwriting consistently meets the expected standard, they are awarded with the privilege of a pen licence, which is celebrated in our celebration assembly. At St Nicholas, our writing, grammar, punctuation and spelling curriculum is based upon the National Curriculum programmes of study and lessons take place every day across the school. Teachers use the National Curriculum and Lancashire KLIPs to derive long term plans in the subject; careful consideration is given to the sequence of the curriculum and ways in which the lessons build towards a piece of writing which showcases pupils' acquired knowledge, skills and understanding. Children receive regular feedback from both teachers and their peers in the writing process; class teachers endeavour to provide guidance and feedback during lesson times in order to ensure this has maximum impact on pupils' outcomes. At St Nicholas, we believe that writing is strengthened by instilling a love for reading within our pupils. We value the importance of reading to supplement writing, which is celebrated in classrooms and around school. In addition, throughout the school year the importance of reading is enhanced through World Book Day, author and poet visits and Book Fairs to further enrich our English curriculum.
We firmly believe at St Nicholas, that if we support pupils in establishing a love for reading and expose them to high quality vocabulary, this has a significant impact on pupils’ ability to become authors and develop their own, individualised style of writing.
We endeavour to ensure we provide our pupils with a 'language rich' environment; we do this with our links to the School Library Service, which ensures we have a wide range of texts displayed around our school, to correlate with our wider curriculum. We work closely with a range of book fairs in raising the profile of reading to ensure we share the importance of reading with our parents, carers and wider community. Working walls are regularly updated to ensure learning is documented within a unit of work. Class teachers ensure that the writing process is clear on working walls, with modelled examples being available to all pupils as the sequence of lessons develops.
Impact
The school has a supportive ethos and our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievement of others.
We measure the effectiveness and impact of our English Writing, Grammar and Spelling curriculum in a variety of different ways. We use National and summative testing to assess pupils' outcomes for Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling as part of the Statutory Assessment Tests (SATs for Year 6 pupils) and through termly summative assessments across school which enables pupils' progress and attainment in the subject matter to be evaluated. The impact of the curriculum can be seen through pupils' assessment results.
Through lesson and pupils' book monitoring, it is evident that pupils are being well supported to acquire the necessary skills and subject knowledge in order to become established and confident writers and work monitored in books demonstrates that the curriculum is taught at an age-appropriate standard across each year group, with additional opportunities planned for pupils to demonstrate their ability to work at a higher standard. Lesson observations demonstrate that learning is being broken down into smaller steps and modelling supports pupils in the writing process - ensuring that the subject as a whole is regularly being reviewed to ensure learning is being embedded into pupils' long term memory.
As a result we have a community of enthusiastic readers and writers who enjoy showcasing their developing literacy knowledge and skills. They are confident to take risks in their reading and writing, and love to discuss and share their idea. Our attainment at the end of EYFS, KS1 and KS2 is above that of Lancashire and the national average.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
Dr. Seuss
Phonics
In Key Stage One we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds scheme of work for teaching phonics.
Policies
Curriculum Overview
