English Curriculum

Our English Vision (Intent)

At St Joseph’s we ensure that we teach pupils to speak, read and write English fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them. Developing pupils skills in reading will enable them to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually and the literature, we immerse children in, will play a key role in such development.

At St Joseph’s we aim:

To promote high standards of language and literacy, reading, spelling, writing, speaking and listening.
To equip pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment
To teach pupils to read easily, fluently and with good understanding
To help pupils develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
To ensure that pupils acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
To help pupils to appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
To teach pupils to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
To enable pupils to use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
To ensure that pupils are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Our English Practice (Implementation)

Throughout school we use the National Curriculum to plan objectives. We then use Power of Reading and Read Write Inc to plan lessons and activities, as well as using a wide range of teaching and learning resources.

At St Joseph’s we believe that English is effective when:

Teachers develop pupils’ spoken language across the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically.
Spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing.
The quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak is used for developing their vocabulary and grammar and their understanding for reading and writing.
Teachers ensure the continual development of pupils’ confidence and competence in spoken language and listening skills.
Pupils develop a capacity to explain their understanding of books and other reading, and to prepare their ideas before they write.
Pupils are helped to make their thinking clear to themselves as well as to others and teachers will ensure that pupils build secure foundations by using discussion to probe and remedy their misconceptions.
Drama, poetry and role play are used to build pupils confidence and to practice their skills in speaking, listening reading writing and performing in front of others.
The teaching of reading focuses on word reading and comprehension and is developed across the curriculum and phonics alongside other key strategies will play an important part in teaching pupils to read and spell.
Comprehension skills are developed through pupils’ experience of high-quality discussion with their teachers, as well as from reading and discussing a range of stories, poems and non-fiction.
Pupils are encouraged to read widely across both fiction and non-fiction to develop their knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live, to establish an appreciation and love of reading, and to gain knowledge across the curriculum
Teaching develops pupils’ competence in transcription and composition and they are taught how to plan, revise and evaluate their writing across all subject areas.
Pupils are taught to use the elements of spelling, grammar, punctuation correctly and to understand and use Standard English in their speaking and writing.
Pupils are taught cursive handwriting from Nursery.

Our English Outcomes (Impact)

The English leader will support the teaching and learning of English by; providing strategic leadership and direction, monitoring progress and standards across the school, reviewing and revising the English, policy, monitoring and supporting teachers in the teaching of English, keeping staff up to date on new developments in English, monitoring the effectiveness of the planning and development of English, auditing, monitoring the effective and appropriate use of resources and obtaining new resources.

Teachers will assess children’s work in English through formative judgements by; asking questions, observing learners during lessons and listening to pupils’ discussions. Children will complete a reading test termly using NFER. Writing is assessed each half term and is assessed through a variety of genres. Children have regular opportunities to revisit and consolidate prior skills and knowledge.

Reading

Our pupils learn to read and write effectively through using the Read, Write Inc phonics scheme from Nursery through to Year 2. Alongside our phonics teaching, the pupils are taught reading and writing skills through using high quality texts through the 'Power of Reading' initiative. The Power of Reading scheme is from the CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. For more information, click on the picture.

EYFS Skills Coverage:

Reading progression document:

KS2 Reading progression:

Classic Stories Progression

Playscripts/Playwrights Progression

Poetry progression

Writing

We teach handwriting from Nursery and cursive handwriting from Year 2 and would urge parents to encourage cursive writing at home.

EYFS Skills Coverage

Handwriting policy:

Handwriting poster:

English Overviews for each class can be found on the Class Pages (Located under the Children drop down)