In our English curriculum at St. John’s, we strive to provide all children with the knowledge, skills and understanding to become life-long learners and confident readers. We want all children to desire to read and write for a range of purposes and a range of audiences, as well as making links with other curriculum areas and discovering things for themselves. We place reading at the centre of our English curriculum to immerse and engage our pupils in a literature-rich environment. We believe that reading is the key to unlocking children’s learning potential.
• To promote a positive attitude to reading, writing, speaking and listening.
• To develop children’s ability to become confident users of language, both oral and written.
• To ensure children have access to a broad, balanced and creative literacy curriculum.
• To provide clear and consistent teaching throughout the school.
• To communicate the school policy on English to all staff, Governors, parents and other interested parties.
• To use language as a vehicle for personal development and fulfilment, and as a source of pleasure.
As children at St John’s, we expect them to be avid readers, children who read fluently and widely and are able to express preferences and opinions about the texts that they read. We want them to read for pleasure, having had access to a wide range of text types, genres and authors in order for them to make informed opinions about their favourites. We want to produce children who write with confidence and accuracy for a variety of purposes and audiences whilst developing their own individual flair. We want our children to be able to write with grammatical accuracy and be able to apply spelling patterns correctly using a neat handwriting style. We aim to expose our children to a wide range of vocabulary so that they able to decipher new words and then use them when speaking both informally and formally. We also aim for our children to apply all of these English skills to all areas of the curriculum. In English, we have high expectations for ALL learners, regardless of their needs or starting point. These intentions are underpinned by:
• High Expectations - All children are expected to succeed and make progress from their starting points.
• Modelling - Teachers teach the skills needed to succeed in English providing examples of good practice and having high expectations.
• Fluency - Children apply English skills with ease throughout all of the curriculum.
• Vocabulary - Ambitious vocabulary is taught and modelled and is expected to be applied in everyday situations.
Following the National Curriculum for English, we ensure that writing is taught across the whole curriculum and we ensure that writing skills are embedded in all forms of writing in all subjects.
• We use Jonathan Bond’s English Planning kit which outlines a progressive term by term set of reading, writing, speaking and listening and spelling objectives based on the 2014 National Curriculum. The kit has been enhanced to make it bespoke to our school.
• This approach is utilised throughout the school, from Reception to the end of Year 6, enabling children to build upon previous knowledge throughout the school.
• From the very earliest stages of writing development, we promote talk to aid writing.
• Writing is taught through the use of high-quality, model texts and the children will always have a clear purpose and audience for their writing.
• Children write a range of narrative and non-narrative texts, as well as poetry.
• Writing is modelled throughout the school, by the teacher with a plan, write, edit, and publish process.
• The use of success criteria (toolkit) are essential for children to become independent writers.
• Children have access to a range of resources to support their writing and are taught to use these.
• Children are given the opportunity to self and peer-assess throughout our writing units; this develops the children’s ability to discuss their writing and take on board any advice or feedback their partner has for them.
• Dictionaries and thesaurus are available for all children to use.
Please see below a breakdown of what skills are covered in each year group during each term.
Following the National Curriculum for English, we ensure that Reading is taught across the whole curriculum. Reading comprehension skills are taught with a ‘wholeclass’ approach in English and with smaller group intervention when required.
• We aim for children to develop an interest and pleasure in reading as they learn to read confidently and independently based around rich stimulating texts.
• Phonics is taught daily in Early Years, Year 1 and the first term of Year 2. Children are taught initially in class groups and then are grouped for phonic activities as appropriate by the class teacher. This work is built on in Year 2 and in KS2 as needed in intervention groups.
• Reading at home is essential and is recorded in the homework diaries for homeschool communication.
• Each class visits our school library either weekly or bi-weekly for a dedicated time slot to exchange, share and discuss books and reading for pleasure; this is also modelled by the class teacher.
• Guided reading is also delivered in small groups across Key Stage Two. This allows children the opportunity to read aloud with an adult but also promotes a conversation about what is being read, without the expectation of written responses.
• Each child in KS1 has a login to Reading Eggs, which promotes the learning of phonics and reading skills. This is available at school and at home.
Please see below our reading curriculum and reading spine documents.
Skilled word reading involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Underpinning both is the understanding that the letters on the page represent the sounds in spoken words. This is why phonics is emphasised in the early teaching of reading to beginners (i.e. unskilled readers) as they start school.
Daily phonics sessions are taught from Reception through to Year 2, when this embedded phonics work closely matches the spelling requirements of the curriculum.
At St John’s, we use the ‘Twinkl Phonics’ scheme with Rhino Reader books to support this. Twinkl Phonics is a DfE validated full systematic, synthetic phonics programme that contains everything you need to deliver phonics teaching to children from the very beginning of learning to read and write to full fluency. At Key Stage Two (Years 3-6), children should learn to change the way they speak and write to suit different situations, purposes and audiences. They should read a range of texts and respond to different layers of meaning in them. They should explore the use of language in literary and non-literary texts and learn how the structure of language works.
When children reach the middle of Year 2, if they have not been able to meet the threshold to pass the phonics screening assessment, they will receive extra intervention with a trained member of staff. This intervention will be assessed and reviewed and if the desired progress has not been made, we will put a new initiative in place.
At St John’s, we have devised our own handwriting scheme. In Reception and Year 1, children are taught to print, focussing on correct letter formation and sizing. When children progress into Year 2, some joins are taught to prepare them for learning full joining when they move into Year 3 and 4. We teach the children using a continuous cursive approach and by the time children reach Year 5, they should be confident in this unless they have a specific fine motor control difficulty. Please see our separate handwriting policy for more information.
As stipulated in the National Curriculum, the grammar of our first language is learnt naturally and implicitly through interactions with other speakers and from reading. Explicit knowledge of grammar is, however, very important, as it gives us more conscious control and choice in our language. Building this knowledge is best achieved through a focus on grammar within the teaching of reading, writing and speaking. Once pupils are familiar with a grammatical concept (for example ‘modal verb’), they should be encouraged to apply and explore this concept in the grammar of their own speech and writing and to note where it is used by others. Young pupils, in particular, use language that is more complex in speech than in writing, and teachers should build on this, aiming for a smooth transition to sophisticated writing.
When we want to teach children to apply a grammar term in their writing, we will either teach that concept within a writing lesson or a completely discrete lesson. For discrete lessons, we use The Natural Curriculum to support our teaching.
The teaching of punctuation is taught in relation to age related expectations in the National Curriculum and alongside grammar. Children are taught that the use of punctuation will aid the readers’ comprehension of their work. Opportunities across the curriculum will allow children to consolidate punctuation concepts.
Spelling is taught in line with the National Curriculum, with all statutory spelling patterns taught and most of the non-statutory work is followed. From 2022, we have been following Jonathan Bond’s spelling kit from Years 2-6. A spelling pattern is focused on in class for a one or two week period and is revisited regularly throughout the scheme. Assessment of spelling includes a ‘quiz’ or a dictation, when children are also expected to demonstrate their wider grammar and punctuation skills. In KS2, we also use Spelling Tutor; this programme assesses children's individual ability and gives children their own spellings, targeted at their areas for development. In Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, the spellings given to the children are in line with the phonic sound they are learning in school.