St. Urban's Catholic Primary School, a Voluntary Academy

English

English Home Learning Resources

Our Vision for English

Intent

At St. Urban’s it is our intention to produce a lively and stimulating language environment in which staff are committed to teaching individual, group, and class activities, which promote rich and appropriate speaking, listening, reading, and writing experiences whilst valuing and celebrating diversity in culture and language.

Implementation

At St Urban’s Primary School, we aim to foster a love of language and reading and therefore, attach great importance to enabling our children to become fluent readers. In Reception and Year One we follow the ‘Floppy Phonics’ systematic synthetic phonic programme, supported by actions used in the ‘Jolly Phonics’ programme. This teaches children the sounds and tricky words needed to support them with their reading and writing.

From Year 1 this is then followed by the ‘Spelling Shed’ scheme which is divided into six stages, each stage corresponding to the respective school year. Within each stage, there are weekly objectives and spelling lists that give a steady progression through the English curriculum but also offers opportunities for our children to review spellings and attempt additional challenge lists to extend vocabulary.

Grammar and punctuation is taught both explicitly and implicitly within English lessons.

Children will experience a wide range of authors and text types during their times at St Urban’s Primary School. In each year group, pupils will regularly hear books being read to them, in addition to reading for their own pleasure. We aim to foster a love of reading throughout the school and hold regular events throughout the year to promote this. The children have access to a range of different reading books, predominantly those within the Oxford Reading scheme. These include Floppy Phonics, Songbirds and Project X. By providing the children with a range of books it ensures that they not only suits their ability, but allow them to experience and range of writing styles and text types.

Pupils are encouraged to use their knowledge of texts to write for a range of purposes such as: explanations, instructions, reports, balanced arguments, stories and poems. They are taught to plan, draft, revise, edit and present their writing, evaluating the success of their writing.

Our Reception children are not be taught to join letters or to start every letter ‘on the line’ with a ‘lead-in’, because these practices cause unnecessary difficulty for beginners. From Year 2, we begin using the ‘Joinit’ handwriting scheme, demonstrating pre-cursive/cursive handwriting. As the children progress the children are encouraged to write in a neat, legible style using our cursive script.

Drama and Speaking and Listening are an integral part of not only English, but also the wider curriculum in order to encourage self-confidence, imagination and empathy. It is used to stimulate, explore and challenge ideas. Communication is a key feature of many aspects of St Urban’s curriculum.

Impact

We strive to ensure that our children's attainment is in line with or exceeds their potential based on their varied starting points and that children will make good progress in Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening. We measure this using a range of assessment materials and methods, whilst always considering the age-related expectations for each year group. We intend the impact of our English curriculum will ensure our pupils are academically prepared for life beyond primary school and throughout their educational journey. Literacy at St. Urban's means not only to read, write, speak, and listen, but also to use language to learn, think, and communicate effectively.

Our Vision for Phonics

Intent 

 In St Urban’s it is our intention that every child will become successful, fluent readers and writers by the end of Key Stage One and we believe that this is achievable through a combination of strong, high quality, discrete phonics teaching combined with regular, daily opportunities for developing reading and writing skills. The teaching of phonics is a key strategy that is used to help our children to read, write and spell.  We acknowledge that children need to be taught the key skills in segmenting and blending to be equipped with the knowledge to be able to complete the phonics check at the end of Year 1.  We value and encourage the pupils to read for enjoyment and recognise that this starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills.

 The acquisition of reading skills is of the utmost importance to us here at St Urban’s and therefore the teaching of phonics is given a high priority within school.  Phonics is taught daily and the phonic skills are modelled and reinforced throughout the day by all members of staff.  We have high expectations and children are encouraged to apply their skills in their independent play and through guided activities.  Their achievements are celebrated and these celebrations are shared with parents to involve them in their child’s learning journey. 

 In order for the children to become competent readers and writers it is integral that we ensure:

(1) Consistency in the approach to teaching phonics throughout EYFS, KS1 and KS2 where appropriate;

(2) Rigorous planning, assessment, and tracking;

(3) Quality first teaching of stimulating, interactive lessons to support motivation;

(4) That all children are able to read by the end of EYFS (ELG) and the age of six. (Year 1 phonic screening check).

 Implementation

Through the teaching using the validated ‘Floppy Phonics’ scheme the children are taught the essential skills needed for reading. Pupils have daily phonic sessions and have regular one to one reading and guided reading sessions with an adult. During these sessions we ensure the pupils are regularly practising and applying their phonic knowledge. The children take home reading books which match their current phonics level and they are encouraged to read regularly at home.  In the EYFS the continuous provision matches the pupil’s current knowledge and understanding whilst ensuring the children are suitable challenged.  

 At St Urban’s we aim to:

• Teach children to recognise the graphemes within words and associate them with the appropriate phoneme when reading.
• Encourage the use of segmenting and blending so that decoding skills provide a sound foundation for reading, writing and spelling.
• Establish consistent practice, progression and continuity in the teaching and learning of phonics and spelling throughout the school
• Deliver high-quality phonics teaching which secures the crucial skills of word recognition that, once mastered, enables children to read fluently and automatically enabling them concentrate on the meaning of the text. 
• Ensure that children are taught strategies to identify and decode ‘tricky words’ within the English language and high frequency words that do not conform to regular phonics patterns

 Teachers regularly assess the pupil’s phonics knowledge using phonics assessment, reading milestones and Reading Early Learning Goal (in EYFS). These regular assessments inform planning and allow teachers to identify any gaps in learning.

 Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Check at the end of Year 1 and children who do not pass will re-screened it in Year 2. Attainment in reading is measured using the statutory assessments at the end of Key Stage One and Two. These results are measured against the reading attainment of children nationally. However, we firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments. We intend the impact of our Phonics and English curriculum will ensure our pupils are academically prepared for life beyond primary school and throughout their educational journey.

Reading Areas

Key Stage One Library

Year 2 Visit The Library

Phonics