English

Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement for English

Intent

At St Mary’s we aim to deliver an English curriculum which is designed to enable and empower children’s written and oral communication and creativity. We aim to provide stimulating, relevant and interactive English lessons in which children can enjoy being imaginative and purposeful writers. We aim to develop children who can communicate clearly and accurately both orally and in written forms, adapting their style to suit a range of different contexts, purposes and audiences. We aim to teach and encourage pupils to become confident, enthusiastic, independent and critical readers, who can read for a variety of different purposes including enjoyment and the pursuit of knowledge. As they progress though school, it is our intention that the children become familiar children with a wide range of high quality and challenging, fiction, poetry and non-fiction texts and have the opportunity to explore and deepen their understanding of these texts though discussion, role play and written comprehension activities. We aim for children to have an interest in words and their meaning, developing a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms. As well as being a discrete subject, we recognise that English skills are key to all areas of life and learning and seek to provide meaningful reading and writing opportunities in all areas of the curriculum.

Our English curriculum reflects our five school values

Implementation

English is taught discretely in Years 1 to 6 during daily lessons. We use selected units from Hamilton Trust to ensure a balance of fiction, non- fiction and poetry units and to ensure that different genres are taught and revisited as children travel through school. These units follow a teaching sequence which uses a quality text as a starting point to develop speaking and listening, reading and writing skills.

If appropriate, links are made to other curriculum areas and the audience and purpose of the writing is made clear. Children are taught to plan, draft, edit and improve their writing at an appropriate level.

Punctuation and Grammar underpin the writing process and is taught in discrete lessons within the writing sequence as well as being embedded within all writing sessions.

In addition to spelling work which takes place within English lessons, dedicated short sessions are timetabled for the teaching of spelling.

In Key Stage 1 the children are taught through daily, interactive phonic sessions and

from Year 2 onwards we use The No Nonsense Spelling Scheme.

Cursive handwriting is taught in from Year 1 using the Letterjoin scheme.

Enhancing children’s vocabulary will arise naturally from their reading. Challenging vocabulary will be discussed along with strategies for working out the meaning of unfamiliar words and children will be encouraged to use new vocabulary in their own writing.

In Key Stage 1 reading skills are further taught through small group guided reading sessions and in Key Stage 2 using a whole class reading approach. High quality and challenging texts are carefully chosen to ensure that children are exposed to a wide range of classic and modern fiction, different authors and genres and these are used in all classes to engage children and develop a love of reading.

Planning is flexible and responsive to either recap what has been taught, practice the concepts learned or to move the children on. Planning is regularly monitored by subject leaders and Senior Leadership Team (SLT).

Impact

The impact of our English curriculum can be seen by talking to the children about their interest in this subject and seeing evidence in their books, on learning walls in classrooms and on displays around the school.

Staff make assessments of the children’s learning on a daily basis through observation, listening to children, engaging them in conversation about what they are reading and writing and through marking their work. The pupils own view of his/her attainment is taken into account through a variety of self-assessment methods. 

In addition, SAT tests are carried out during the summer term for Year 2 and 6 children to support the Teacher’s assessments of the children’s attainment and further inform planning to further develop learning. NFER reading and SPAG tests are also used Year 1 onwards to inform progress and planning.

Pupil progress is recorded using Target Tracker informed by ongoing assessments and updated regularly to show where the children are in their attainment. The SLT holds Pupil Progress Meetings each term with each class teacher to discuss the progress of the children in their class. Progress is monitored of all children at regular stages throughout the school year.

The teaching and learning of English throughout the school is monitored and evaluated by the English Lead and SLT, through observation of English teaching and scrutiny of work.