English

English Curriculum Statement.

At St. Joseph’s we believe that language and literacy is fundamental to the overall development of children and their access to the curriculum in all its aspects. In the society in which we live an ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing and to read a wide range of texts is essential if children are to achieve their potential throughout their school days and into their adult life.   We follow the 2014 National Curriculum Framework for Literacy and other guidance to enable quality learning and teaching to take place.

We want all our children by the end of Year Six to be able to:

• Express their thoughts and ideas with confidence in a manner appropriate to the situation;
• Listen to the ideas of others and respond thoughtfully and appropriately;
• Perform to small and large groups in a variety of ways;
• Have an interest in words and their meaning and a growing vocabulary;
• Read and write with enjoyment, confidence, fluency and understanding;
• Be able to orchestrate a full range of reading cues (phonic, graphic, syntactic, contextual) to monitor their reading and correct their mistakes;
• Be interested in books, read with enjoyment and evaluate and justify their preferences;
• Understand the sound and spelling system and use this to read and spell accurately;
• Have fluent, legible, cursive handwriting;
• Understand and be able to write in a range of genres in fiction and poetry;
• 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 range of non-fiction texts;
• Plan, draft, revise and edit their writing;
• Have a suitable technical vocabulary through which to understand and discuss their reading and writing;
• Through reading and writing, develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.

At St Joseph’s we also have a very well stocked library. Children are actively encouraged to visit the library any lunchtime and can borrow fiction and non–fiction books to read at home or support homework.

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPAG) is taught regularly, both as part of daily literacy lessons and discrete sessions.

We provide a whole range of reading and writing opportunities daily, including cross curricular links where possible. In these lessons we cover a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts. Grammar and punctuation are taught as specific lessons and as an integral part of developing reading and writing skills. Throughout the school, we use a ‘reading into writing’ approach. As a minimum, each year group will study at least one high quality text a term to produce a range of quality pieces of work.

We offer support to parents and carers with ways to help with English at home. We hold meetings and workshops to discuss how we approach English in school and we highlight the targets your child will be working on during the term at our regular parents’ evenings. Parents also have regular access to SPTO to see how their child is progressing.