ENGLISH AT ST RICHARD'S

OUR INTENT

At St Richard’s, we recognise the importance of early language development in creating opportunities later in life. From this, our English Curriculum has been developed to support a life-long appreciation of reading and writing. 

We love reading and want every child to discover their own love of reading before they leave our school. On top of understanding the importance of reading to acquire knowledge, we want our pupils to know and enjoy the pleasure of books. Our strong and growing reading culture helps provide a rich context for learning both inside and out of the classroom.

We choose engaging, high quality books that are representative of our diverse local community and allow the children to see and understand the world through different lenses. Through these texts, we create opportunities for children to develop empathy and philosophical enquiry. Similarly, our pupils develop spoken language through debate, drama and discussion about the issues raised in the texts. As a school, we value how our text choices can help expand our pupils’ knowledge beyond their immediate experiences. 

Unsurprisingly, a wide range of quality texts form the basis of our English teaching. We endeavour to foster an enthusiasm for writing by providing meaningful writing opportunities that allow pupils to write for different purposes and audiences. We believe it is important for our pupils’ futures to be able to write confidently in all contexts.

Creating a vocabulary-rich learning environment is important for our school community. We know that unlocking new words and language opens doors for future learning and life experiences. Frequent visits, trips out of school and WOW days provide valuable stimuli for the learning of new vocabulary.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM

WRITING

• We will deliver four weekly sessions with lessons taken from the Literacy Tree Scheme of Work.
• The lessons will focus on different types of texts: fiction, non-fiction and poetry. There will be a variety of books used including picture books from Reception up to Year 6.
• Children will have opportunities to write a length but to also complete shorter writing tasks.
• The writing tasks will have a focus on thinking about who is the audience and what the purpose of the task is.
• The writing tasks will be meaningful and cover a range of genres such as, but not limited to: a story, diary entry, newspaper article, persuasive argument and a letter.
• Children will have the opportunity to edit their work before it is marked.
• Marking will be done through the use of green and yellow highlighters to identify the child’s successes and next steps in their writing in line with our marking policy.
• Throughout the unit of work, there will be grammar and punctuation lessons linked to their writing tasks to make these lessons more meaningful and purposeful.
• In KS1, children will receive daily phonics lessons. Those in KS2 will have spelling lessons twice a week with the children who have not passed their phonics screening, receiving further phonics interventions.
• In KS2, our spelling combines two schemes, Babcock’s No Nonsense spelling as well as the Literacy Tree’s Spelling Seeds. Together these schemes allow children to learn words which they can apply into their writing immediately. This makes their spellings more purposeful.
• Children in KS2 will have regular dictation assessments where they will have to spell some words which follow the rules and patterns that they have been learning.

READING

• We will deliver 2 guided reading sessions a week through either whole class sessions or through smaller groups.
• Our aim is to develop fluency and expression, understanding of the text as well as an enjoyment of books.
• We have two well-stocked libraries which children have access to and are encouraged to use them to borrow books.
• Each classroom also has their own reading corner with a selection of books which children have access to.
• Children are heard to read frequently throughout the school.
• Each class will also listen to a story read to them by their teacher.
• Those children who are not at their age related expectations will have interventions and be guided through the ‘Fresh Start’ programme to help them reach their targets.

How to support your child with their reading

IMPACT OF THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM 

•    Pupils will leave St Richard’s with an enjoyment of reading for pleasure. 
•    Pupils will have developed their own strategies for spelling unknown words. 
•    Pupils will have built up a stamina for writing at length and have developed methods for self-editing their own work. 
•    With our literacy curriculum being well established throughout the school, children will be confident in writing in a wide range of genres which can be transferred to secondary school. 
•    These writing skills will be used throughout the wider curriculum to show the consolidation of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary in all aspects of writing which can be used later on in life. 
•    We hope that as our children move on from St Richard’s, they will do so with a solid foundation of writing which they can then nurture and develop throughout their further education.