English at Our Lady’s Catholic Primary School 

Statement of Intent: 

At Our Lady’s, we aim to immerse our children in a literary world, giving them an appreciation and awareness of the rich and varied literary heritage that surrounds them. Every time a child picks up a pen or pencil to write, or a reading to share, we will encourage them to see themselves as a writer, a researcher, a poet or a speaker. At Our Lady’s we intend to develop a love for reading and writing within all our children, enabling them to leave our school being able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions though their writing and discussion and them to understand the value of these skills and be empowered by them.  

We want children to acquire a wide, rich and varied vocabulary, a habit of reading, a solid understanding of grammar and to be able to apply their phonics and spelling rule knowledge that they acquire through their time at primary school, to read and write effectively. Children will follow a clear progression pathway to enable them to read fluently for both pleasure and information and to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their vocabulary or writing style depending on their audience. We intend to develop independent, confident and creative writers, who during their time at our school, build upon a range of skills and develop a stamina for writing. Children will be encouraged to take pride in their presentation or delivery, in part by developing their joined handwriting by the time they reach Upper Key Stage 2. The children at Our Lady’s will be challenged as readers and writers, be encouraged to take risks, see mistakes as a journey to improvement and given opportunities to be creative with their writing. Throughout all of this, to recall and apply our values through our questioning, learning and responses. 

Dear young people,

do not bury your talents, the gifts that God has given you!

Do not be afraid to dream of great things!

Pope Francis 

Writing 

Writing, in English lessons, are based around high-quality stimuli, predominately texts in every year group, but at times also include film narratives, for example. All texts are mapped out, progressing in the challenge, within and moving up year groups. The fiction texts are chosen to ensure a mixture of classics, contemporary and traditional stories, along with poetry and non-fiction texts and plenty of opportunities to practice the spoken English through performance, debate, discussion and presentations. Children are given the opportunity to write for different purposes, for example, to inform and explain, to persuade, to share emotions and feelings and to review. The link between reading and writing is explicit and planning follows the reading to writing process, giving pupils plenty of opportunities to become emerged in rich, quality texts. Staff use effective modelling using the writer’s voice at all stages and provide a variety of resources to support every child to achieve their writing potential. 

Overall, we recognise that the teaching of the writing process is inextricably linked to the teaching of reading, speaking and listening and through an integrated approach, children are given the opportunity to learn new skills within a broad range of contexts. 

All units of work follow a clearly planned sequence: - 

Reading                    (an exploration of the text type including comprehension, vocabulary, authors                                          intent and audience – including orally retelling) 

Skills                         (exploring, learning, practising and consolidating skills that are key to the text                                          type) 

Writing                      (Planning and drafting a text) 

Editing                      (Proofreading, assessing the effectiveness of, editing and improving the                                                  writing)      

As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing and skills taught in the English lessons are transferred into all other subjects; this shows consolidation of skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use specific grammar, punctuation and grammar objectives. 

Reading 

At Our Lady’s, we value the importance of reading and know that by encouraging and developing a love of reading within our children, we are providing them with a lifelong skill that supports future success. All classes have a class book and dedicated story time each day.  Children begin their reading journey with ‘Read, Write, Inc’ and this is supported by a range of phonetically decodable books. This is taught daily and in small groups in EYFS, KS1 and where appropriate, KS2 children may also access these lessons. Children are taught in targeted groups and assessed half termly, to ensure that teaching supports all children to reach their potential.  

Click here (https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/about-us/mission/) for more information about Read Write Inc. 

In addition to English lessons, in years 2,3,4,5 and 6, whole class guided reading sessions are also taught regularly, focusing, through discussion and written work, the key skills of retrieval, inference and prediction, as well as expanding their vocabulary. All children are given opportunities to learn about a range of authors and styles of writing and through their English writing lessons and reading lessons, are able to read a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, including media and texts from a variety of cultures and traditions. We recognise that parents are the first teachers of a child and therefore, we encourage children to read frequently at home and teachers monitor reading records regularly. We work hard to ensure that every child is heard read as often as possible within school, within all year groups. In EYFS and KS1, children have access to reading books that match their phonics group and children who have completed the reading scheme have access to our school library. 

Spelling 

Spelling is taught discretely each week, following the Rising Stars progressive programme. Children are also given weekly spellings to practise at home, to prepare for weekly spelling tests. 

Grammar 

A progressive writing composition and grammar routeway is followed to ensure clear skill progression in writing throughout the school that is built on year by year. This is taught within the main English lesson, as either a starter activity, or the main focus of learning for the lesson. 

Enrichment  

Children at Our Lady’s have regular basic skills sessions, which focus on teaching handwriting. Teaching the children to develop a neat, legible, speedy handwriting style, using continuous cursive letters to produce letters and words.