Holy Trinity Church of England Primary School
English
Intent
English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils 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, pupils have a chance to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, socially and spiritually. Literature, especially, plays a key role in such development. Reading also enables pupils both to acquire knowledge and to build on what they already know. At Holy Trinity, all pupils are encouraged to read widely in order to widen their vocabulary and broaden their experiences, introducing them to the best that has been thought and said so that they appreciate human creativity and achievement. All the skills of language are essential to participating fully as a member of society; pupils, therefore, who do not learn to speak, read and write fluently and confidently are effectively disenfranchised.
Aims
The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
- read easily, fluently and with good understanding
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- implement targeted interventions to ensure that pupils who are not fluent readers and communicators by the end of Key Stage One are fully prepared to access reading opportunities across the balanced curriculum in Key Stage Two.
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.
Implementation
English is a fundamental part of our curriculum at Holy Trinity. A significant part of each school day is dedicated to the teaching of English. Overall, this amounts to the following time in each key stage:
Early Years: one hour and fifty minutes daily
Key Stage 1: between one hour and forty minutes daily
Key Stage 2: one hour and 30 minutes daily
The English curriculum comprises of the following subjects:
- Spoken English, including the development of vocabulary
- Reading, including phonics
- Writing
- English grammar, punctuation and spelling
As well as dedicated English lessons covering the above aspects, English is also taught within other subjects across the curriculum. This enables pupils to apply skills and knowledge within different contexts.
We use the structured Steps to Read reading programme for our daily whole-class Guided Reading lessons. This programme is a carefully structured whole-class reading scheme, which is backed by evidence-informed practice. The sequential lessons incorporate metacognative strategies and feature high-quality, diverse texts and focus on explicitly teaching reading strategies. This programme is taught from Y2–6 and has clearly mapped progression to ensure consistency across these year groups. The scheme also includes texts from other curriculum areas, such as History, Geography and Science, ensuring that children access high-quality texts in these curriculum subjects.
Our writing curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education which meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-winning Ready Steady Write from Literacy Counts to develop confident, independent and successful writers with high aspirations. Our writing curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, carefully designed to support all children to master the foundational skills and write for a clear audience and purpose. Through the use of high-quality vocabulary-rich texts, the children are provided with exciting and meaningful reasons to write. Children are immersed in literature and taught to craft their writing with precision, using a range of pedagogical approaches, including sentence accuracy, modelled writing and shared writing, as well as opportunities for editing.
We have tailored this curriculum to match the needs of our children, by removing some units from each year group. This ensures that teachers have time to embed the foundational skills and knowledge children need in order to make progress. We have selected the units which have been removed from this curriculum carefully, ensuring that the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum are still covered in each year group (see Missing Units Rationale document below)
We value spoken language as a foundation for writing. Through structured talk, drama and vocabulary exploration, children learn how to organise and express their ideas clearly before writing them down. Our aim is for every child – regardless of need – to write fluently and take pride in their work. We want our pupils to leave primary school as enthusiastic writers, ready for the next stage of their education.