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Holy Family Catholic Primary School

Barrow-in-Furness

Contact

manager@holyfamily.cumbria.sch.uk

01229 828018

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English curriculum at Holy Family Catholic Primary School

English at Holy Family involves the important skills of reading and writing, speaking and listening. English contributes to the emotional, aesthetic and intellectual development of the child.  English is the medium through which all learning takes place.  All our pupils, therefore, will be given the full range of opportunities necessary to enable them to develop competence in Standard English through a creative and meaningful curriculum.

 

Our curriculum has been carefully planned using the Dfe National Curriculum statutory guidance. Please click here to view the English programme of study for Key stage 1 and Key stage 2.

 

OUR ENGLISH OBJECTIVES

  1. To develop, in children, an enjoyment of literature.
  2. To develop, in children, the ability to talk and listen in a variety of contexts, to express ideas and feelings, and to give and respond to information and instructions.
  3. To foster early reading skills and develop accuracy, fluency, understanding and independence in reading.
  4. To enable children to know, understand and be able to write in a range of genres in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. 
  5. To develop skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling.
  6. To develop skills of handwriting and thus a high standard of presentation.
  7. To recognise individual rates of progress and provide opportunities to monitor and assess the language development of each child.
  8. To ensure continuity, progression and coherence of language activities.
  9. To enable children to receive constructive guidance about how to improve their work.

 

Long term English plan

English Curriculum Maps

At Holy Family, we have created a English curriculum overview for every year group. This includes all key learning, text genres, objectives and assessments for English Reading, English Writing, Speaking & Listening and Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar.

Please click on the following links to view our English Subject curriculum maps.

 

Year 1 English Curriculum Map

Year 2 English Curriculum Map

Year 3 English Curriculum Map

Year 4 English Curriculum Map

Year 5 English Curriculum Map

Year 6 English Curriculum Map

Reading 

At Holy Family, reading is at the heart of everything we do. We know that to be the best we can be, we need to be the best readers we can be. We believe that learning to read is the most essential of the basic skills that need to be acquired during the Primary School years. Reading and communication are both key life skills. The ability to fluently read enables children to decode and understand written messages in and beyond school. It allows children to access the wider curriculum and to enjoy a wealth of literature. Through the enjoyment of stories, poetry, drama and non-fiction texts children are able to discover for themselves a love of reading and a world of ideas and experiences. 

VISION

Through the Reading curriculum, we aim to help children to develop the skills and knowledge that will enable them to fully decode words leading to an understanding of written messages.

We aim for all children to develop a love of and enthusiasm for reading. Our vision is that all children become confident, fluent readers, with an understanding of a variety of texts and genres. We aim for all children to develop an interest in books and to read for enjoyment.

 

OUR READING OBJECTIVES 

  1. To achieve very high standards in reading.
  2. To apply a very rigorous and sequential approach to developing speaking and listening and teaching reading, writing and spelling.
  3. To have an effective programme for phonics teaching based on a high-quality synthetic phonics scheme.
  4. To have in place diligent, concentrated and systematic teaching of phonics so that it is central to children’s success in learning to read.
  5. To use high-quality and expert teaching that follows the carefully planned and tightly structured approach to teaching phonic knowledge and other essential reading skills.
  6. To adopt a consistent approach and make every minute of every lesson count.
  7. The quality of formative assessment and the interaction that stems from will make an important contribution to learning.

 

READING SCHEME

From Nursery to Year 2 our reading scheme is inline with the Letters and Sounds Phonics Phases. The reading scheme mainly consists of: Phonics Bug club, Big Cat Letters and Sounds, Oxford Reading Tree Traditional Tales and Floppy Phonics. 

Our Key Stage 1 reading scheme is broken down into weeks, reflecting the teaching of Letters and Sounds. This allows for the consolidation of sounds in line with teaching. The reading book that your child comes home with from school will match the level of learning of phonics that your child is working at in school. It is important that your child reads this same book daily to develop fluency. The more children see words the more they begin to read them automatically without them having to sound them out.

We use the Power of Reading teaching schemes to help guide us in our reading lessons based on high quality texts linked to our class topics where possible. This enables us to bring a love of books into our classrooms whilst teaching meaningful and purposeful reading based lessons.

 

READING AT HOME

At Holy Family we actively encourage reading at home. Asking your child questions while reading their book will give them a greater understanding of what they are reading. We also complete weekly reading challenges to enhance our understanding of key texts read.

Please see below our reading expectations for each year group.

READING ASSESSMENTS

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is completed throughout all reading lessons through 'on the spot' marking and feedback from the teacher with the children. Please click on the following links to see our year group expectations and assessment focuses.

EYFS Reading Comprehension expectations

Year 1 Reading Comprehension expectations

Year 2 Reading Comprehension expectations

Years 3 & 4 Lower KS2 Reading Comprehension expectations

Years 5 & 6 Upper KS2 Reading Comprehension expectations

Summative assessment

NFER reading tests are completed at the end of every term across years 1-6. These tests provide us with reliable standardised scores so that we can confidently monitor attainment and progress enabling us to identify specific pupil targets and ensure all children continue to make at least very good progress.

End of KS1 and KS2 reading papers are also completed in years 2 & 6.

Writing

TEXT GENRES & PROGRESSION

Our Long Term Planning ensures progression in genre coverage at the appropriate age group levels. Our planning also links with our writing statements for each year group. Each year group statement builds on from the previous one. 

Editing and improving our writing

To help us edit and improve our writing, we use the terms 'correct, improve, add'. Please see below our editing writing progression for Year 2 - 6

ASSESSMENTS & YEAR GROUP EXPECTATIONS

Both formative and summative assessment of writing is completed by teachers. Summative judgements are given based on assessment across a number of pieces of writing. Please see highlighted text genres on our long term plan for longer pieces of independent writing completed every half term. Our children have a vast range of opportunities in writing linked to our creative curriculum and ongoing formative assessment of writing linked to our text genres is completed weekly through peer, self and teacher assessment. These formative assessments are completed through 'on the spot' marking and feedback in class and from writing marking grids completed linked to the text genres success criteria. Pupils are aware of the targets they have met and those which they are aiming to achieve next. Teachers advise pupils how to meet targets and this joint involvement by children writing their own stars and next steps helps move pupils' writing on.

Please click on the following links below to download our year group expectations and assessments.

Grammar, Punctuation & Spellings

Our aims at Holy Family Catholic Primary School

  • To ensure all pupils have the knowledge to spell words efficiently and accurately whilst drawing on knowledge of phonics and spelling patterns.
  • To ensure that all pupils are able to react to punctuation when reading, be aware of all parts of punctuation and where/where not to apply them and to be able to write using these devices accurately.
  • To ensure that all children are aware of correct English grammar in terms of subjects, tenses and plurals whilst having a secure grasp of these linguistic skills both orally and in any form of written work.
  • To develop accurate oracy for all children in the form of being effective and confident public speakers and story tellers who practise precise grammar and diction.
  • To ensure that all pupils are equipped and ready for the Y2 and Y6 GPaS tests.

 

Classroom learning & provision

  • In KS1 spelling, punctuation and grammar objectives will be delivered through the Letters and Sounds programme and activities linked to the statutory NC objectives. When children finish the programme the objectives will be covered in a weekly lesson.
  • In KS2 spelling, punctuation and grammar objectives will be covered during the first 10 minutes of the daily English lesson during the ‘warm up’ sessions, using a range of strategies. 
  • HOME LEARNING - Weekly spellings will be arranged by the teacher and sent home on a Monday. In KS1 these spellings will be based on the sounds they are currently learning in their phonics sessions as well as learning ‘high frequency’ and ‘common exception words.’ In KS2 the spellings will be taken from the spelling bank and NC statutory word bank. Differentiated spellings are given to those children who have been identified as needing additional support. Spellings are available on our school app, Showbie and set on Spelling Shed. This is to ensure children have a variety of mediums in which to learn their spellings at home.

GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION & SPELLING ASSESSMENTS

  • Formative assessments completed through weekly spelling challenges 
  • NFER Grammar, punctuation and spelling tests will be administered during ‘Assessment Weeks.’ Progress will be monitored from term to term.
  • Assessments will be completed termly.