English plays an important role in both education and in society as a whole.

At Our Lady & St Patrick's, we fully recognise that speaking & listening, and the development of good communication skills are the cornerstones of all learning.

Through being taught to write and speak fluently, pupils learn to communicate their ideas and emotions to others; through their reading and listening, others can communicate and respond.

Reading allows pupils the chance to develop culturally, emotionally, spiritually and socially. Through reading a wide variety of texts pupils acquire new knowledge and vocabulary, and build on what they already know.

In order to participate fully as a member of society, all the skills of language are essential. 

Children's enjoyment of our English Curriculum is strengthened through events such as National Poetry Day 2023.

Look at the fun we had when we enjoyed a fabulous visit from children's poet and author Fay Evans (photographs below):

Our Aims in English:

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

Reading

For full information on READING, please visit the Phonics and Reading page of our Curriculum area of the website, by clicking the link below...

Oracy in our English Curriculum

Oracy develops pupils' confidence, articulacy and capacity to learn.

Providing a high quality oracy education empowers students, regardless of their background, to find their voice for success in school and in life. Effective communication skills are needed for students to succeed in later life.

We aspire to create an oracy embedded curriculum and enable pupils to develop speaking and listening skills in all year groups.

Please follow the link below to the Oracy area of our website.

Writing at Our Lady & St Patrick's

At Our Lady & St Patrick's, all children are exposed to high quality texts, which stimulate positive responses to reading, high quality writing, and purposeful opportunities for Speaking & Listening.

Our writing curriculum ensures that all children have many opportunities to write for different purposes. We encourage writing through all curriculum areas and use quality reading texts to model examples of good writing, through 'The Power of Reading'.

We have recently introduced a new writing approach in Year 1 to Year 6, 'I am a Clever Writer'. The main aims of this new approach to writing are:

• To ensure a consistent and streamlined approach to writing
• To develop an inspirational writing spine to fit the needs of our school community
• To provide detailed skill and genre progression documents
• To ensure all our teachers know how to teach the basics of writing, effectively 
• To raise the standards of writing for all children

Copies of the long term plans for writing, based on quality texts - including the use of picture books throughout school and up to Year 6 - are available from our writing lead. In addition, skills progression and genre progression documents are in place for Year 1 to Year 6, and a copy of these is also available from our writing lead (Emily Nattrass).

In our Early Years, teachers are skilled in the teaching of early writing and phonics. All early writing is based around key texts and 'real-life' activities, which are closely linked to EYs topics and  themes.

🌟 STAR WRITERS 🌟

Each Friday, we look forward to 'STAR WRITING', where children try their best to show everything they've learned in writing lessons through the week.

High Quality Texts to Underpin Writing

As our class topics are based around quality texts, children experience writing in many different styles and have the opportunity to hear the writing styles of many significant children's authors.

Children are encouraged to use their knowledge of these texts to write for a variety of purposes and wherever possible to publish them for a selected audience using a range of writing forms. They learn to plan, draft, revise, edit and present their work, before evaluating the success of their writing. 

Spelling

In our Early Years and Key Stage One, children learn to spell through the implementation of the Success For All Phonics Programme, and daily lessons in phonics and spelling.

In Years 3 to 6, children are taught spellings relevant to their year group, through our bespoke spelling scheme.

Children's progress in spelling is tracked carefully as they move through school, so that any gaps in spelling can be identified and quickly addressed.

Children also regularly use dictionaries and thesaurus to check and improve their work. 

Grammar and Punctuation

Throughout school, grammar and punctuation is taught to match the writing purpose. This begins with teaching and consolidating basic sentence structures in Early years and Key Stage One.

In Key stage Two, children further develop their understanding of increasingly complex sentence structures, and using the relevant technical terms to be able to discuss and justify the choices they have made when structuring their ideas.

The 'I am a Clever Writer' approach teaches and reinforces grammar within each unit of work. 
 

Handwriting

Handwriting is very important at Our Lady & St Patrick's, and children are taught to write in a neat, legible style, from their earliest days in school, and using a cursive script from Year Two onwards. 

Extra handwriting sessions are timetabled in addition to handwriting being modelled and taught within all writing lessons. We maintain a focus at all times on  correct pencil grip; forming all letters correctly by knowing the size and orientation of each letter; using the correct handwriting joins; clear and neat presentation and increasing fluency and speed of writing.  

National Curriculum Programme of Study for English

Please click the icon below...

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