St Laurence's Catholic Primary SchoolEnglish at St Laurence's
English Curriculum
At St Laurence’s Catholic Primary School, the foundations for teaching National Curriculum English begins in Early Years Foundation Stage, with the development of a high quality programme planned within Communication, Language and Literacy.
The teaching of English at KS1 and 2 is underpinned by the National Curriculum (2014) At St Laurence’s we believe a high-quality education in English will teach children to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others, and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them.
Through reading in particular, children have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. We understand that reading also enables children both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know in all areas of the curriculum. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society. We have a passion for driving diversity through our collated reading spine to enable our learners a window into a world beyond their own.
At St Laurence’s Primary School, English and the teaching of English is the foundation of our curriculum. Our main aim is to ensure every single child becomes literate and progresses in the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening. We are passionate about promoting reading throughout the school day in all curriculum areas. We offer a fluent curriculum that starts in our EYFS through lots of oracy skills and the building blocks of phonetical knowledge, through Key Stage one & two continuing to build of fluency whilst intertwining the national curriculum objectives through cross curricular links, all the way up to Year 6, when our children are exposed to challenged texts to encourage deep critical thinking. We use our own language progression to allow children to develop their understanding of GPS to allow teachers to monitor any gaps in learning and offer early intervention to stop any limitations to our pupils.
Staff at St Laurence’s feel it is seminal to highlight and be aware of the differing groups of learners and vulnerable children in their class. Once this information is acquired, teachers can plan and teach personalised English lessons which focus on the particular needs of each child. We recognise that each child has their own starting point upon entry to every year group and progress is measured in line with these starting points to ensure every child can celebrate success. We have a commitment to supporting every child regardless of ability. Please read our supporting documentation for a more in depth window into our provision for SEND , EAL , disadvantaged & other vulnerable groups.
English at St Laurence’s will not only occur in daily English, Reading and Spelling/Phonic lessons, but it is embedded within all our lessons and we will strive for a high level of English for all. Through using high-quality texts, immersing children in vocabulary, rich learning environments and ensuring curriculum expectations are met, the children at St Laurence’s will not only become primary literate but will also develop a love of reading, creative writing and purposeful speaking and listening. Our reading spine has been specifically tailored to incorporate all areas of learning. Children will be exposed to high quality texts within every lesson. Evidence of this can be found in our reading spines.
As we believe consistency and well-taught English is the bedrock of a valuable education, at St Laurence’s we also want to ensure that the teaching of writing is purposeful, robust and shows clear progression for all children. Teachers make active use of monitoring and reflection to ensure there are no gaps for learners. Use of data logging tools such as sonar & primary progress, Salford Reading, NFER data, teacher assessment, teacher judgement & RWI trackers allow formal and summative assessment to take place regularly to support learning.
As a proud 'Power of Reading' school we utilise high quality children’s literature and proven creative teaching approaches to support and develop a high quality literacy curriculum and a whole school love of reading and writing. The Power of Reading meets all requirements of the National Curriculum. Each text is purposefully selected in order to promote a love of reading, engagement and high quality outcomes in both written work and oracy from individual children.
As a team we now have a carefully sculptured reading spine. This ensures each text has a deeper context within lesson, which we feel was important in developing our children as they move throughout school. Our themes are: our world, breaking stereotypes, other cultures, classic narrative & poetry, favourite authors and growing up. Each theme was discussed and books were built around them based on what we know the children have enjoyed in previous years.
In line with the national curriculum, we ensure that each year group is teaching the explicit grammar, punctuation and spelling objectives required for that age groups. As well as teaching the objectives, teachers are able to embed the skills throughout the year in cross-curricular writing opportunities and ensure that most children are achieving the objectives at the expected level and that some children can achieve at a greater depth standard. Our English team regularly reflects on the challenge offered within our school to not only drive standards but push any children we identify for greater depth within the English curriculum for extra intervention to meet their full potential.
Assessment of writing is fluid as teachers assess writing, once per half term, against moderation criteria created by staff. All year groups use the same format for assessing writing which have been produced in line with the end of Key Stage assessment frameworks as published by the Department for Education.
The impact on our children is clear: progress, sustained learning and transferrable skills. With the implementation of the writing journey being well established and taught thoroughly in all key stages, children are becoming more confident writers and by the time they are in upper Key Stage 2, most genres of writing are familiar to them and the teaching can focus on creativity, writer’s craft, sustained writing and manipulation of grammar and punctuation skills.
As all aspects of English are an integral part of the curriculum, cross curricular writing standards have also improved and skills taught in the English lesson are transferred into other subjects; this shows consolidation of skills and a deeper understanding of how and when to use specific grammar, punctuation and grammar objectives.
Please see our individual pages for reading, writing and phonics for a more in depth look at the reading spines, progression documents and reading for pleasure we are taking part in across our school.