English
Sound English skills are essential for progress across the curriculum and to prepare pupils effectively for tasks of adult life. All teachers have a responsibility to develop pupils' competence in reading, writing, speaking and listening in their own subjects and to ensure that pupils become competent users of language, and can access the curriculum effectively and achieve their potential.
St Stephen's (Kearsley Moor) CE Primary School:
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Recognises the effect a confident, fluent and coherent understanding of English will have on a pupil's progress, both inside and outside of the school environment.
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Understands how a strong grounding in English will impact the future learning and development of a pupil in all aspects of life.
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Provides a balanced and broad curriculum which encompasses writing practice, including handwriting, spelling, widening vocabulary, and writing for different styles, purposes and audiences, as well as focusing on spoken English, reading, grammar and pronunciation.
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Ensures all staff members are aware of planning, assessment, teaching and learning requirements for the English curriculum.
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Ensures all pupils know how to plan, practise and evaluate their work.
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Ensures all pupils understand all elements of English, as per the National Curriculum.
Reading Intent
At St Stephen's, we believe our English curriculum should develop our children's love of reading. We have a whole school culture we want all children to read well, quickly. We value reading as a key life skill, and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. Our reading resources will offer our children stimulating, vocabulary rich and awe-inspiring content, which will develop outward looking pupils who are able to engage in learning about themselves and raise awareness of national and global issues.
Our reading curriculum supports our children's skills in decoding words so they can read well, quickly in line with National Curriculum Standards following the 'Essential Letters and Sounds'. The ELS programme is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP). We will present our children with plentiful opportunities to read for pleasure and purpose; and enable them to make choices about books based on a specific author or genre. In addition, we aim to ensure all children gain a good understanding of what they have read and will use VIPERS skills to fully embed this level of comprehension.
Writing Intent
At St Stephen's, we believe our English curriculum should allow our children to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing. Our pupils will understand and use a wide variety of vocabulary and understand the purpose of their writing. They should be able to adapt their writing for the genre they are writing in and with a knowledge of who they are writing for. They will also be confident spellers and use a range of grammatical features to enhance their writing style. Our children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a good, joined, handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school.
English Policy
Writing Overview
EYFS Literacy
Pathways to Write Information
Pathways to Write
Writing Pupil Voice
Reading at St Stephen's
Supporting Reading
Reading Vipers Bookmark
Top Tips
Reading for Pleasure Pupil Voice