English
What makes a good English pupil at Holy Cross?
A passion for reading and writing, an ability to think and work independently, an ability to persevere, an enquiring mind, a good knowledge of grammar, an ability to share ideas, is able to attempt new things and explore creativity. The children will demonstrate traits from our Learner Profile, including being inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, risk takers, caring, balanced, reflective and resilient.
 English: Reading at Holy Cross |
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Intent |
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Encourage and provide the opportunity for all children to read widely and often for both pleasure and information Inspire a love, enthusiasm and passion for reading within the school, children and parents. Allow children to engage critically with a wide range of different genres of literature so they can appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage. Support children in developing a range of decoding and comprehension skills so that they can read fluently and with understanding to access the curriculum. To fully equip children with the basic reading skills they need to enable them to be successful beyond primary school. To develop children’s understanding of language and vocabulary so that they can fully understanding the deeper meaning of texts. Provide high quality texts and authors that feed pupils’ imagination and inspire wonder, joy and curiosity. To develop children who are confident with: tackling unfamiliar words, retrieving and inferring answers from the text, discussing and evaluating the authors’ language and structural choices and explaining the meaning of words in context. |
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Implementation |
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High quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet individual needs. Regular green vocabulary feed forward marking to help develop children’s language. Reading is highly valued and included daily as a part of children’s learning. Teach explicit strategies for tackling questions. Displays promote reading and support children’s contextual understanding of vocabulary. Accurate half termly assessment through the use of Learning Ladders. Supported by Pathways, Testbase, Twinkl and NFER formal assessments to ensure application of skills. Workshops for parents on how to support reading at home Opportunities to develop through extra-curricular e.g. book club and phonics club. Regular visitis to the local library Links to the only book stor in St Helens - St Helens Book Stop High quality texts are available for children to access in the library, classrooms, through our home reading schemes and via the local library Lessons to include links to language to develop vocabulary and adults to model use of adventurous language. Guided reading, individual reading and book talk are completed daily. Following a clearly sequenced and progressive program of study based on the National Curriculum objectives. |
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Impact |
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Children have high levels of oracy and talk confidently about their learning in reading using appropriate and technical vocabulary. Children develop their imaginations and actively engage with a range of different texts enthusiastically. Children confidently apply their reading skills across other areas of learning. Outcomes at the end of each Key Stage is at least in line or above National and progress is at least good. Children will read daily at home to embed skills and knowledge. Children have an understanding of culture and history in relation to literature as well as how books across different cultures differ. Children have a widened vocabulary and can apply strategies confidently to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words. Prepared for the next stage of their learning and reading in their daily lives. Children enjoy reading lessons and are confident to read aloud in front of others and discuss their understanding of the text. Demonstrate a love or appreciation of reading and talk confidently about a range of literary genres and authors. |
 English: Writing at Holy Cross |
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Intent |
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Encourage and provide the opportunity for all children to flourish and shine in their writing. For children to write in a variety of styles and contexts Inspire a love, enthusiasm and passion for writing within the school, children and parents Allow children to engage critically with a wide range of different genres of literature so they can appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage Support children in developing a range of segmenting and composing skills so that they can write confidently and independently To fully and equip children with the basic writing skills they need to enable them to be successful beyond primary school To develop children’s understanding of language and vocabulary so that they can write texts with rich and engaging language choices Provide high quality texts and authors that feed pupils’ imagination and inspire wonder, joy and curiosity To develop children who are confident with: imersing themselves in a text, analyzing a text, planning and composing their own texts using the appropriate features, structuring texts accurately, writing for a purpose, using punctuation accurately, using a range of spelling strategies, editing and improving their work and making adventurous language choices. |
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Implementation |
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High quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet individual needs. Regular green vocabulary feed forward marking to help develop children’s vocabulary choices. Writing is highly valued and included daily as a part of children’s learning. Dictionaries, word mats and thesauruses available in all classes. Classroom displays promote writing and support children in making adventurous language choices. Accurate half termly assessment through the use of Learning Ladders. Supported by the Ready Steady Write scheme, independent writing and spelling and GPS assessments. Sharing writing at Parent’s Evening and displayed in classroom. Opportunities to develop through extra-curricular e.g. writing competitions. High quality texts are available for children to access in the library, classrooms, home reading schemes and via regular visits to the local library Lessons to include links to language to develop vocabulary and adults to model use of adventurous language. Editing strategies and checklists to support children with editing and improving their own writing. English lessons are completed daily. Following a clearly sequenced and progressive program of study based on the National Curriculum objectives. |
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Impact |
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Children talk confidently about their learning in writing using appropriate and technical vocabulary. Children develop their imaginations and actively engage with a range of different texts enthusiastically. Children confidently apply their writing skills across other areas of learning. Children have a widened vocabulary and can write texts which include rich vocabulary choices. Children have an understanding of culture and history in relation to literature as well as how books and writing styles across different cultures differ. Outcomes at the end of each Key Stage is at least in line or above National and progress is at least good. Children can apply all their writing skills independently (including spelling and GPS skills) to create a well balanced text. Children can write for a range of different purposes. Prepared for the next stage of their learning and writing in their daily lives. Children enjoy English lessons and are confident to share their ideas with others in the classroom. Children confidently read share their finished pieces with others Children demonstrate a love and passion for writing and talk confidently about a range of literary genres and authors. |
 English: Phonics and Spelling |
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Intent |
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Support children in learning their sounds so they can segment and blend to read words. Support children in developing a range of decoding strategies so they can read words, sentences and books. To allow children to develop an understanding of spellings patterns and rules which they can then apply in their reading and writing. Inspire a love, enthusiasm and passion for reading within the school, children and parents. Develop skills and enjoyment in reading for a purpose to obtain information. To fully equip children with the basic reading skills they need to enable them to be successful beyond primary school. To develop children who are confident with: segmenting, blending and decoding. Encourage and provide the opportunity for all children to read widely and often for both pleasure and information. To prepare children for the Phonics Screening Check. |
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Implementation |
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High quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet individual needs. Regular and frequent explicit Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling lessons to develop and embed children’s skills. Teach explicit strategies for identifying phonemes, graphemes and diagraphs. Classroom displays and self-help resources support Phonics. Accurate half termly assessment through the use of Sound Checks and Phonics Screening Tests. NFER spelling test completed termly. Opportunities to develop through extra-curricular e.g. phonics club. Phonics is highly valued and included daily as a part of children’s learning as a non-negotiable. Skills are taught and supported to be transferred across curriculum subjects and progresses naturally in to the spelling programme. High quality texts are available for children to access in the library, classrooms and our home readers programme Children access quality Phonics and Spelling activities at the appropriate level at home through online support from homework. Children set across the school for accurately pitches Phonics lessons. Dojos to reward children’s phonics and spelling work. Following a clearly sequenced and progressive program of study based on the National Curriculum objectives. |
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Impact |
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Children talk confidently about their learning in phonics and GPS using appropriate and technical vocabulary. Children can apply their phonics skills across reading and writing in other areas of the curriculum. Children confidently apply their blending and segmenting skills across other areas of learning. Outcomes at the end of each Key Stage is at least in line or above National and progress is at least good. Phonics Screening Results to be in line or above National. Children have an understanding of the etymology and morphology of words. Children have a range of strategies to correctly spell and read familiar and unfamiliar words. Prepared for the next stage of their learning and reading in their daily lives. Children enjoy Phonics and GPS lessons and are confident to read aloud in front of others. Children are able to make age appropriate attempts at spelling common exception words and high frequency words.
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English in the Early Years Foundation
Reading
The Early Years Foundation Curriculum supports children with their Early Reading skills. Throuhg sharing high quality texts, children develop an understanding of sharing stories through Nursery Rhymes, Fairy Tales and the Nativity. They develop the skills to independently hold books and enjoy looking at the illustrations, developing their own interests along the way. Chidlren will learn to recognise their name, as well as begin their early reading journey through the introduction of the Read Write Inc programme, where they will build a foundation for decoding through recognising the Set 1 signs. By the end of Reception, children are given the tools to decode words, applying their phonic knowledge and using this to blend unfamiliar words. The continue to develop their love of reading, diving deeper into books and holding discussions surround key characters and story lines.
Writing
The Early Years Foundation Curriculum supports children from mark making in Nursery, to forming simple sentences by the end of Reception. Children are supported to develop their fine motor skills which allows them to have more control over the tools they use to write, as well as giving more meaning to the marks they are making. Writing is done across the curriculum and is present through all the topics covered. Children are allowed to express their ideas freely, whilst being guided on how to use writing frames to structure their writing, as well as form their letters to the correct shape and size.
Speaking and Listening
The Early Years Foundation Curricululm supports children's speaking and listeneing skills through listeneing, attention and understanding. Children learn to listen and respond to a variety of texts including stories, nursery rhymes and poems, retelling whst they have heard and commenting on the parts they enjoyed. Children engage in everyday conversations, where they use language and vocabulary they are developing daily and start applying this into full sentences. They learn the meaning of words and use this when discussing books they've enjoyed, through imaginative play and also when talking about their own lives and thei world around us.
How children learn
- Class timetables have been developed to ensure a broad and balanced curricululm
- Through high quality texts being used as vehicels, across all subject areas
- Classes enjoy listeneing to stpories read to them by an adult and develop a love of reading
- Vocabulary is an integral part of all lessons and activities and is shared and modelled by adults daily
- Through the structure of the Ready Steady Write and Pathway Programmes to support National Curricululm coverage
Inclusion
Within English, all pupils will take part in all the lesson sequences, but we need to be clear about the critical core content for pupils with SEND.
As part of the planning and preparation for the delivery of each block, teachers will need to consider how specific activities, or the delivery, may need to be adjusted to ensure that pupils with SEND are able to access the materials and participate fully in the lesson.
Pupils with language and communication difficulties (including those with ASD) may need additional visual prompts to help them understand what is expected of them. The task could be broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks and individual task boards used to demonstrate these.
Some pupils may have sensory sensitivities. For those pupils, adjustments may need to be made in order for them to access materials.
Pupils who have difficulties with tasks requiring fine motor skills may need appropriate adjustments to be made to enable them to access the task and / or in order to keep them safe.
Knowledge notes will also be chunked to ensure learners understand key content.
This will then lead to our assessment framework. Some pupils may show extended knowledge and be skilful with it from other lessons.
Useful Links to support with English at home
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/
https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/
https://idlsgroup.com/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zt3rkqt