English
Intent
At St. Philip's CE Primary School, we strive to ensure that all pupils are equipped with the skills needed to be fluent in all aspects of English.
Communication lies at the heart of our Curriculum and success relies upon being fluent in speaking, listening, reading and writing.
We want to prepare our pupils for the next stage of their education by ensuring they can read, write and communicate with confidence for a variety of purposes and audiences, whilst developing their own individual flair and opinions. We strive for our pupils to leave St. Philip’s as avid readers, who can read fluently and are able to express preferences and opinions about the texts they choose. We want them to read for pleasure, having had access to a wide range of genres and authors, making informed choices about their favourites. Reading and writing go hand in hand and at St. Philip's we adopt a read to write approach to the curriculum. Lesson sequences ensure that prior knowledge is built upon and pupils are immersed in a range of genres where writing for a purpose engages and ignites their passion. We strive that all pupils leave St. Philip's with a secure knowledge of spelling and grammar and understanding of how to edit writing and to write effectively for a range of purposes.
We follow the National Curriculum Programmes of study for all aspects of English.





Implementation
We believe that reading forms the heart of the curriculum and the ability to read is essential to the success of our children. Our aim is to fully prepare each and every pupil for the next stage of their learning journey and beyond. Fostering a love of reading is crucial and from the minute your child enter St. Philip's in Reception, we aim to immerse them in a text rich environment where reading is integral to all aspects of learning. We aim to ensure that children not only learn to read but also read to learn, with research opportunities and strong links with allcurriculum subjects integral.
Reading is an integral part to all lessons and is taught by;
Phonics: Daily systematic synthetic phonics for pupils who are not yet fluent readers.
Story Times: Where books are read aloud for pupils to enjoy and foster a love of reading.
Text base units: High quality texts for the basis of the English units ensuring that pupils have model texts to draw upon.
Guided Reading: Where a broad range of texts are explored and enjoyed and pupils build upon their reading proficiency, vocabulary, authorial intent and comprehension in a small group.
Comprehension Lessons: Where pupils are taught to develop our pupils understanding of texts. Pupils are taught to retrieve, infer, predict, summarise, analyse and evaluate a whole class text.
Independent Reading: Is vital to develop a love of reading and allows children to be immersed in the magical world of a text. Our class and school libraries allow for pupils to develop their own preferences and discuss their likes, dislikes.
Reading to learn: We aim to maximise opportunities for pupils to read through all curriculum subjects. The Pupils' knowledge and understanding is developed through opportunities to engage in independent research.
Reading at school and at home
Children from EYFS to Year 6 are able to choose their own home reading books every week. Our reading system is book banded by colour, using books from a range of reading schemes including Oxford Reading Tree, Project X and Songbirds. Each book band from Lilac to Turquoise has been carefully organised to contain decodable texts suitable for children as they move through the different phonic phases. Staff support the children in Reception and Key Stage 1 to ensure they choose a book that is allowing them to apply the phonics they have learn in class or to consolidate previous learning.
Additional to home reading books children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 can choose a bedtime story to take home each week. This is to develop a love of reading within their families at home as well as allowing them to be immersed in a variety of texts and language.
All pupils have access to our school library.
Phonics
In EYFS and Key Stage 1 Phonics is taught daily, through a Synthetic, Systematic Phonics programme validated by the Department for Education. As a school we teach phonics using Essential Letters and Sounds.
Each child from Reception to Year 2 takes part in phonics sessions daily with their class teacher. Children who are identified to be struggling with their phonics willalso have an additional daily phonics inteNention to keep them up with their phonics learning as wellas additional 1: 1 reading of a decodable text.
Each week children take home a decodable reading book for them to practise what they have learnt in school, at home with their families. From Year 1 upwards children will also have spellings to practise at home that include their new phonics learning.
Writing
Reading and writing go hand in hand and at St. Philip's we adopt a read to write approach to the curriculum. Lesson sequences ensure that prior knowledge is built upon and pupils are immersed in a range of genres where writing for purpose engages and ignites their passion. We expect that all pupils leave St. Philip's with a secure knowledge of spelling and grammar and an understanding of how to edit writing and to write effectively for a range of purposes.
This is implemented by:
Lesson sequences: Sequences of lessons ensure that quality model texts clearly demonstrate what is expected of each genre so that pupils are aware of expectations from the start.
Working Walls: In every class act as the invisible teacher to support the child's learning journey and classrooms are text rich.
Spelling lessons: Within phonics and beyond, spelling rules are taught and practised. Spelling shed is used to engage pupils in spelling at home. Pupils in Year 1 and Year 2 are sent weekly spelling linked to their phonics learning to allow them an extra opportunity to apply their new learning. Spelling appendices for each year group are taught in either discreet spelling sessions or within English lessons, whichever teachers feel will be the best way to deliver the specific spelling rule that week.
Grammar is integral to all literacy units and is taught both discretely, as a separate lesson and within English units.
Shared, guided and modelled writing: Teachers model writing so that children fully understand the writing process. Teachers model thinking out loud, editing errors and improving their writing. During shared writing every pupil is given the opportunity to contribute to the writing process. This scaffolded further into paired, supported and finally independent writing.
Writing for a purpose: Whenever possible teachers plan writing opportunities with a clear, real-life purpose to motivate and inspire pupils to write for a variety of reasons.
Celebrations of pupil's achievements in writing are displayed around school and in classrooms to motivated and inspire pupils.







Impact
Through clear and explicit teaching, regular monitoring and moderation that focuses on progress and attainment of all pupils, focussed tasks at the end of each literacy unit to assess pupils against the National Curriculum objectives, the impact of our curriculum at St. Philip's should ensure that:
- Children leave our school with a love of reading. All pupils will be able to reference a wide range of different authors, from different literacy traditions, culture and genres.
- Children leave our school with a love of writing. They will all be able to express their opinions and their creativity in writing that is well-structured, clear, technically accurate and interesting to read. They will be able to apply their writing skills to writing of any purpose.
- Children leave St. Philip's able to express their opinions verbally; to understand how to engage - and disagree - with others clearly and articulately.
- Children leave our school having made the best possible progress for them.
Children leave confident to try new things, experiment with their writing, take risks, and continue to expand their experience of reading.
Insert content here