St. John's Catholic Primary School

English

Subject Leaders - Mrs Fran Rosevere and Mrs Flora Sanders

Link Governor - Ms Helen Milbourn

Curriculum Intent

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." Dr Seuss

Reading, writing and communication are central to the curriculum at St John's Catholic Primary School. The aim of our curriculum is to provide an engaging and differentiated experience throughout the school, so that all children are able to read, write and speak fluently, expressing their ideas and feelings clearly to others. We endeavour to provide a curriculum that is broad, varied and engaging, offering experiences through quality texts, drama, trips, author visits, role-play and discussion.

You can click here to read the full English intent statement.

Curriculum Implementation

Reading is at the heart of the English curriculum here at St John's. Texts are chosen to reflect our school's identity and ethos, and also that of the wider community and world. Each class, from Years 1 to 6, has a daily English lesson, which will include opportunities for reading, writing, and speaking and listening. Lessons incorporate whole-class teaching, group activities and individual learning. These sessions are planned carefully by teachers using high quality texts throughout the school and using Wordsmith as our core scheme of work in KS2. Lessons are engaging and are differentiated to ensure all children are included. Punctuation and grammar is taught weekly and skills are revisited frequently to ensure they are fully embedded. Year 1 are taught non-cursive letter formation inline with the phonics program and from Year 2, all children are taught cursive writing through weekly handwriting lessons, using Teach Handwriting.

The use of high quality texts to engage children is also key in EYFS, where teachers plan focused sessions of guided writing, supported writing and guided reading each week. In addition, the children have access to Literacy activities as part of continuous provision throughout the day.

All children are given home reading books, in EYFS and KS1 these are Big Cat Little Wandle books that are aligned to the child's phonic level. Once a child is confident in phonics they will be given a book from the Oxford Reading Tree scheme and Big Cat Phonics scheme. As they progress with their comprehension skills, children have access to a wider range of texts to promote reading for pleasure alongside continuing to develop their reading skills. Children are encouraged to choose from stories, poems and non-fiction texts to ensure a range of genres are explored. Alongside home reading books, children are taught reading skills in class as part of guided reading sessions several times a week.

All children are encouraged to read for pleasure and this is promoted through daily story sessions led by the teacher and weekly visits to the library. During weekly library sessions, children are encouraged to choose their own library book to take home and have the opportunity to listen to new and diverse books read by our trained librarian.

Phonics and Spellings

Children in Reception and Year 1 have daily phonics lessons, using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, a complete systematic synthetic phonics program (SSP); click on the for parents tab on the Little Wandle website to access useful information about phonics and reading. From Years 2 to 6, children have regular spelling lessons using the No Nonsense Spelling Program.

Reading Vipers

We use the VIPERS reading method in guided reading. It is a way for teachers to ask and children to become familiar with comprehension questions and skills. VIPERS is an acronym which highlight the 6 areas of reading comprehension.

VIPERS stands for

Vocabulary

Inference

Prediction

Explanation

Retrieval

Sequence or Summarise

Key Stage 1 - VIPERS Posters

Key Stage 2 - VIPERS poster

VIPERS questions

Key Stage 2 - VIPERS bookmark

Knowledge Planners