Intent

At All Saints’ we celebrate that mastering of the English language permeates everything we do. Our overarching aim is to promote high standards of literacy and language by equipping our pupils with a strong understanding of both spoken and written language, whilst trying to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. We aim to provide a stimulating, interactive, fun and challenging English curriculum that prepares our pupils for life beyond our schools and for the ever-changing word in which they live in. We are passionate about valuing the notion that English underpins learning in every subject and work to ensure that there are significant opportunities across the wider curriculum for our pupils to embed their literacy skills. We also aim to build a life-long love of literature so that throughout their lives children can use the literary world as a means of escapism, relaxation and pure enjoyment.

 

We aim to ensure that pupils:

• Develop the skills of speaking and listening; being able to elaborate and explain fully their own understanding and ideas.
•  Read confidently, fluently and with good comprehension of what they are reading.
•  Develop the habit of reading widely and regularly; both for pleasure and for information.
• Acquire a wide vocabulary and an understanding of the English language.
• Write clearly accurately and coherently; adapting their language and style for a range of purposes, audiences and contexts.
• Appreciate and develop our rich and varied literary heritage.

 

Implementation

English is taught through the framework of the 2014 National curriculum. The principles and content of its requirements have been carefully placed at the heart of the school’s English curriculum. Texts and topics covered in English lessons are in keeping with our creative curriculum and quality children’s texts are carefully selected to engage and challenge the children in their literacy learning.

 

Reading

We instil a love of reading in pupils through lessons, author visits, allocated reading time and weekly Book Hours. Very soon our brand new, freshly relocated library (funded by our amazing Friends of All Saints’) will be complete providing a well-stocked welcoming space for enjoyment of books for all. Pupil’s reading skills are developed through engaging with a wide range of reading material and media, with a focus on the use of questioning; to challenge thinking at all levels.

 

Writing

 At All Saints’ we recognise that quality writing is a product of following a process of planning, crafting a range of engaging sentences, using success criteria, drafting and editing. From Nursery upwards pupils are immersed in rich opportunities for writing and take great pride in improving their vocabulary and developing their individual writing style. Teaching spelling, punctuation and grammar skills is an integral part of our English lessons and pupils’ proficiency is developed through imaginative, stimulating and interactive activities. Teachers use opportunities in our broad, balanced curriculum to further embed, extend and develop the writing skills of our students.

 

Speaking and Listening

We aim to develop our pupils’ abilities within an integrated programme of speaking & listening, reading & writing. Pupils are given opportunities to interrelate the requirements of English within a broad and balanced approach to the teaching of English across the curriculum, with opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught literacy skills.

 

Phonics

Phonics is all about sounds. There are 44 sounds in the English language, which we put together to form words. Some sounds are represented by 1 letter, like ‘t’ and some by two or more, like ‘ck’ in duck. Children are taught these sounds and how to match them to letters. Phonics is the building blocks of reading and writing and equips children with the skills needed to become independent readers and writers.

 

At All Saints’ we implement a structured approach to the teaching of phonics which begins on entry to the Nursery and continues throughout the school, incorporating spelling strategies and rules. There are two elements of teaching phonics; segmenting and blending which are taught in parallel. Throughout the teaching of phonics, children are also introduced to tricky words, words which do not follow the conventions taught, like ‘the’ and ‘said’.

 

Assessment

Pupils are assessed against the 2014 National Curriculum Programmes of Study for each subject taught. Pupils are expected to attain the ‘Age Related Expectations’ (ARE) by the end of each school year. We use a combination of formal methods of assessment, statutory assessments and teacher assessed learning to gain an overall picture of our pupil’s progress and attainment.

Nationally Standardised Summative Assessment: These are statutory tests in Reading, Writing and SPaG sat by the pupils at the end of Year 2 and at the end of Year 6. In Year 1, the phonics screening check is a statutory assessment to confirm whether individual children have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard.

 

Writing Assessments: Teachers base their judgement on a broad range of evidence, which will come from day-to-day work in the classroom; this includes work in curriculum subjects other than English. As in other areas of the English curriculum, writing is assessed, within four assessment cycles throughout the year and a judgement given as to whether a pupil is Working Towards (WT), Working At (WA) or Working Beyond (GD) the expected standard.

 

Impact

The impact and measure of our curriculum is to ensure children acquire the appropriate age-related knowledge linked to the curriculum and skills that will prepare them for the next stage of their education and their adult life.

 

Our children will:

• Through reading to develop a lifelong love of literature, widen their horizons and be introduced to the world beyond school
• Become creative thinkers who can think for themselves
• Read confidently, fluently and with good comprehension of what they are reading
• Develop the habit of reading widely and regularly; both for pleasure and for information
• To recognise the importance of spoken language; develop the skills of speaking and listening; being able to elaborate and explain fully their own understanding and ideas
• Acquire a wide vocabulary and use it to express themselves in spoken and written form
• Write clearly accurately and coherently; adapting their language and style for a range of purposes, audiences and contexts
• Be able to apply their learning in different contexts and make decisions as to when to use their learning in English to solve problems

• Appreciate and develop our rich and varied literary heritage