English

"The journey of a lifetime starts with the turning of a page"

Rachel Anders 

At St Lawrence Catholic Primary School, we recognise the crucial importance of studying the English language. Improved performance in reading, writing and spoken language will enable our pupils to express their thoughts and ideas more fluently, accurately and, ultimately, to their greater satisfaction. Literacy is at the core of all other curriculum subjects, while enriching their lives beyond school. We make use of high quality texts to inspire our children to read and write, picking texts that are both challenging for the children, engaging and offer good role models for their work.

“If a child can’t say it, a child can’t write it!’

Ros Wilson

Phonics - We use the Letters and Sounds 2007 scheme for the planning and delivery of phonics in EYFS, KS1 and as the basis for phonics interventions in KS2. As children move through the early stages of acquiring phonics, they practise by reading texts which are fully decodable from our banded reading scheme, which has books from predominately Reading Planet - Rocket Phonics and Big Cat Phonics for Letters and Sounds. We also have books from other published schemes including Oxford Reading Tree.  As the children progress through the banded reading scheme they can experience a variety of reading genres and both fiction and non- fiction texts. Children are provided with a banded reading book that matches their reading level all the way through to KS2. Children can also select books independently from our school library.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

 Dr. Seuss

Reading - Our main objective is to foster a love of reading. Every classroom has a bright and engaging book corner. At the centre of the school is our newly refurbished library and learning resource centre. Children from Reception to Year 6 can borrow books of their choice and access the resources.  Children are encouraged to choose books from the classroom, library or home to share with their parents and encourage a love of reading. We have recently invested in new reading books for children to use throughout the school. We also have organised visits to the local library where children can explore new books and further develop their love of reading.

Guided Reading - Our children will read with their class teacher or support staff in small groups. The pupils take turns reading aloud to develop their fluency skills and are asked questions to develop their comprehension skills. Our guided reading texts are linked to our main reading scheme. They have at least one Guided Reading session each week from Years 1-6 but will also begin Guided Reading during Reception when they are ready. In KS2, we have whole class guided reading sessions in addition to small group reading sessions. Whole class sessions focus on developing children’s reading skills using the ‘VIPERS’ approach.

Book Week - We celebrate Book Week every year through different activities. These include author visits, book tasting, quizzes and dressing up.

Bug Club - Children from Reception to Year 6 have access to Bug Club, where they can read interactive eBooks for their appropriate reading level. Bug Club can be accessed through the children’s tab on our website.

“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.”

John Jakes

Writing - It is important that our children are able to write with confidence, stamina, with accuracy for a purpose and for pleasure.  They are taught to use a range of forms for a variety of purposes and audiences. Quality whole texts are the starting point for all English writing units, which include recommended texts from Power of Reading. We use Talk4Writing approaches to structure many of our teaching units.  

• Pupils will have the knowledge and skills to plan, draft and write across a range of genres to suit an intended audience and purpose.
• They will have secure grammar, spelling and phonic knowledge and apply this to their written work.
• They will have legible handwriting: transcribing quickly and fluently.
• They will be able to evaluate their own and others written work and make changes through effective editing.
• Pupils will be effectively challenged: a challenging pitch and open-ended tasks cater for the needs of the More able pupils.
• They will enjoy writing for pleasure.

Handwriting - We are very proud of our children’s handwriting. Children are taught to write in the cursive style from Year 1 and at the end of the Key Stage 2 all pupils have the ability to produce fluent, legible handwriting.

Spellings  - The foundations in spelling are taught in the EYFS, firstly as part of phonics teaching (through segmenting to spell) taught as part of Letters and Sounds. All children within EYFS and KS1 access a daily lesson of phonics. The ‘tricky word’ spellings are taught alongside the corresponding phonic phases. The children in Years 1 and 2 also learn the common exception word lists for their year groups.  As children move towards the end of KS1 the focus changes from phonics to the learning of spelling rules and strategies. Within Year 2, children are also beginning to learn words from the national curriculum appendix.  Within KS2, key spelling strategies and rules are taught within the classroom. Children will receive their weekly spelling homework to complete at home. Alongside learning spelling rules and strategies, Years 3/4 and Years 5/6 are also expected to learn the words lists as stated in the National Curriculum Appendix. Spelling tests take place weekly Years 1 - 6.

Please find more resources under the children tab on our website. There are links to Espresso and Education City which provide lots of wonderful resources for English.

" We lose ourselves in books. We find ourselves there too"

Anonymous