English

Aims

Our objective within our English teaching is to develop children’s abilities in Reading, Writing and Speaking and Listening. We aim to stimulate and encourage our children’s learning through creative and engaging lessons. Pupils also have the opportunity to employ their English skills across our curriculum, consequently reinforcing the English objectives taken from the New National Curriculum (2014).  At St James’, we strive for our children to be a ‘Primary Literate Pupil.’

We aim for a child to be able to:

• speak fluently and listen with attention and understanding;
• read and write confidently, with fluency and understanding;
• use a full range of reading cues (phonic, graphic, and syntactic) to monitor their reading and correct their own errors;
• understand the phonics and spelling system and use this to read and spell accurately;
• have fluent and legible handwriting;
• have a keen interest in words and their meanings and a growing vocabulary;
• know, understand and be able to write in a range of genres in fiction and poetry, and understand and be familiar with some of the ways in which narratives are structured through basic literary ideas of setting, character and plot;
• understand, use and be able to write a variety of non-fiction texts;
• plan, draft, revise and edit their own writing;
• have a suitable technical vocabulary for literacy through which to understand and discuss their reading and writing;
• develop a love of books, read with enjoyment and evaluate and justify their preferences;
• through reading and writing, develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness;
• present finished pieces of work in various ways, including through the use of ICT.

Statutory Requirements

Statutory requirements for the teaching and learning of English are laid out in the National Curriculum English Document (2014) and in the Communication and Language, and Literacy sections of the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (2014) In the National Curriculum for 5 – 11 year olds, English is developed through four key areas:

• Spoken Language
• Reading – Word Reading & Comprehension
• Writing – Transcription & Composition
• Spelling, Vocabulary, Grammar & Punctuation

In the Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception) children should be given opportunities to:

• speak and listen and represent ideas in their activities;
• use communication, language and literacy in every part of the curriculum;
• Become immersed in an environment rich in print and possibilities for communication.
• Undertake a daily phonics lesson.

At Key Stage One (Years 1 and 2), children should learn to:

• Speak confidently and listen to what others have to say.
• They should begin to read and write independently and with enthusiasm.
• They should use language to explore their own experiences and imaginary worlds.

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.

In Reception and Year 1 we use Read Write Inc (RWI) for Phonics.

In Year 2 we use Letters and Sounds, Fast Track Phonics and No-Nonsense Spelling for Phonics.

Throughout school we use Oxford Reading Tree as a support tool for reading.