St Mary's Catholic Primary School
This is our school, let peace dwell here
St Mary's Catholic Primary School
This is our school, let peace dwell here
English
English at St Mary's
Here at St Mary’s School, we want our pupils to enjoy learning to read and write and discover their own potential. Good literacy skills - the ability to read, write and communicate confidently - are foundational to learning. They unlock access to all areas of the curriculum, enabling pupils to discover and pursue their individual talents and interests.
Through our English Curriculum, we strive to teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills are in the real world. By giving this context to their learning, the children understand the value of English to them now, and in their futures.
Grammar, Puntuation and Spelling
In KS2 we teach spelling, punctuation and grammar both discretely through lesson starters and through immersion in our high-quality texts. Below you will find a table that demonstrates how spelling, punctuation and grammar progresses across the school. You will also find some definitions of some of the grammar and punctuation terminology in the glossary below. We do use this terminology with the children to help them identify the grammatical skills they are using and to help them to speak accurately about the tools they are using in their writing.
We do place an emphasis on spelling across the school. You will find links to the National Curriculum spelling lists below. It is a particularly useful skill to master when children are aiming to become confident writers, as children are able to focus more on their creative writing (their vocabulary choices, sentence construction and structure of their pieces).
The National Curriculum for Years 1 and 2 expects children to be able to:
• Use and write common exception words
• Use and write some common homophones
• Spell some words with contractions
• Use the possessive apostrophe (girl’s, man’s, dog’s)
• Add suffixes to spell longer words including -ment, -ness, -ly, -less, -full
The National Curriculum for Years 3 and 4 expects children to be able to:
- Use further prefixes and suffixes and understand how to add them (such as dis– and –sure)
- Spell further homophones (such as except/accept)
- Spell words that are often misspelled
- Use the possessive apostrophe accurately (plurals)
- Use the first two or three letters of a word to check its spelling in a dictionary
The National Curriculum for Years 5 and 6 expects children to be able to:
- Use further prefixes and suffixes and understand the guidance for adding them (such as –able and –ible)
- Spell some words with ‘silent’ letters (such as knight)
- Continue to distinguish between homophones and other words which are often confused
- Use knowledge of morphology and etymology in spelling
- Use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words
- Use a thesaurus
Children are set spellings to learn each week by completing a different style of activity from the scheme that we use (Spelling Shed). Children also participate in a once-a-week spelling lesson at school and weekly spelling tests.
Children are encouraged to practise spellings both through this homework activity and frequent practice on spelling shed. On Spelling Shed, children can earn points and purchase different accessories/backgrounds for their online avatar.
Each week, classes have the opportunity to win a class trophy for their efforts on spelling shed over the week.
Reading With Your Child
A love of reading is the biggest indicator of future academic success so at St Mary's we are passionate about children reading at both home and school. This not only allows them plenty of practise but more importantly develops their enjoyment of reading.
We know that parents and carers can sometimes worry about how they should be reading with their child and following the way that reading is taught in school. To help parents and carers feel confident in sharing books and listening to their children read, we have constructed some guidance. There are also lots of other helpful resources further down this page.
EYFS and KS1
If your child is in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, then they will be using the Little Wandle Programme to learn to read. Little Wandle has produced lots of handy guidance and you can watch a video with tips about how to read with your child here.
KS2 (Year 2)
If your child has completed the Little Wandle Programme, they will use the Accelerated Reader Programme to select books within their reading range. A guide for how to read with your child and structure discussions is in the link below. Remember reading comes in lots of forms: if your child doesn't often engage in reading at home, try putting the subtitles on films and tv programs or challenge them to read road signs with new place names on.
AWESOME ANNOUNCEMENT: Amazon Wish Lists
This year we are using World Book Day to launch our Amazon Wish List donation scheme. Each year group has set up their own Amazon wish list where you can see the books they would like for their book corners. If you are able to, we would be grateful for any donations – simply click the link below, select a book to purchase and it will be delivered to your child’s year group.
Alternatively, if you have copies of the books listed at home, which your children no longer want, we would be grateful for second hand donations too! Thank you for the amazing support you show our school and we hope you will enjoy this new way to get involved with school life!
Wish List links: Year 6 Year 5 Year 4 Year 3 Year 2 Year 1 EYFS
At St Mary's School, we know the key to unlocking learning is by teaching children to read and that is why we use the Little Wandle DfE-approved phonics scheme to teach early reading. You can see an overview of The Little Wandle Scheme below and at the start of each year, we provide a workshop for parents so you can support your child's reading at home.
In class we teach Reading in several ways. Our English curriculum is designed to be focused on exciting books which use a wonderful breadth of vocabulary and promote diversity and inclusion.
Accelerated Reader
As the children become more confident readers, they move onto Accelerated Reader. AR is part of the Renaissance Reading software package recently adopted by the school to encourage and improve reading, measure growth of the individual reader and to provide quality reading for all. It allows for personalised learning targets to be set up and for progress to be easily monitored. This short guide will help you to understand the system better so that you can support your child with their reading.
Your child will choose a book at their own level and read it at their own pace. When finished, they will take a short quiz on the computer. Passing the quiz is an indication that your child has understood the book.
AR gives both children and teachers feedback based on the quiz results, which the teacher then uses to help your child set goals and direct ongoing reading practice.
AR is used as part of a comprehensive reading programme in place at St Mary's Catholic Primary School for children in Key Stage 2. While we continue to teach the skills of reading in class through guided reading texts and whole-class texts. The AR books chosen by your child will provide them with the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills they have developed.
For more information, please read the parent's guide here.
- St Mary's Reading Policy 2022
- Reading Curriculum Overview
- Reading for pleasure home newsletter spring 1/2023
- Questions to support reading comprehension
- Top tips for bedtime story reading
Writing
The development of writing cannot be seen in isolation from reading, speaking and listening/drama. The best writers are the best readers - we read as writers and write as readers! Strategies for writing, speaking and listening/drama, therefore, form an integral part of our whole school approach to literacy.
Writing is essentially a combination of many skills and has therefore many different elements. These include handwriting, spelling, punctuation, grammar and an ability to compose for understanding and effect with a range of different audiences and for different purposes. Furthermore, life experience, exposure to ideas, books, places and events also contribute to a child's ability to become a good writer.
The children begin their writing journey at St Mary's by writing for purpose in Early Years. We teach the Talk4Writing approach from the end of their first year and this is followed throughout KS1 and into KS2. The children begin by retelling a story using actions. They then write the story using a Best Map. Finally, they create their own piece of writing by improving the original piece and making their own choices.
Children are also encouraged to edit their work, either independently, with a partner, or teacher. They use a green pen to show where they have corrected or improved their work
We encourage the use of Talk Partners to share ideas for writing and orally rehearse sentences. We firmly believe that being able to share and discuss before putting pen to paper significantly improves the quality of work produced. Throughout all of our lessons, it is a key feature.
Shared writing is used to model writing and develop compositional and grammar skills together before the children go on to work independently.
Vocabulary is a key area of focus in all of our subjects across the school. Our Working Walls display key vocabulary for our children to understand and use in their own work.
Throughout KS2 children become more expert in the writing process of planning, drafting, writing, evaluating, editing and publishing. Our ‘writing curriculum overviews’ (that are linked to our reading spine) demonstrate the progression of skills across the school. Our carefully chosen, diverse texts often link to other topics that we are covering so that children can become fully immersed where possible in either the time period in History, specific issue or process in Geography or a concept in Science. This helps children to make links between their learning and helps subject-specific vocabulary really stick.
Writing Curriculum Overviews
We make sure that we give children opportunities for drama activities to help them empathise with characters and immerse themselves in sensory experiences. All of this helps to enhance their creativity within writing.
We use clearly structured working walls to ensure children know which genre they are writing about, the purpose of their writing, any focus words for each week, their spelling rule for the week and provides them with clear models for what they are aiming for (either through previously written examples or modelled or shared writing. Here is an example of a working wall in action.
Handwriting
At St Mary’s, children learn to produce legible and fluent handwriting by using the Pen Pals scheme.
In KS1 and lower KS2 children undertake discrete handwriting sessions 2-3 times a week and by years 5 and 6 children may only undertake these types of sessions when needed. E.g. as interventions or for particular joins.
By the end of KS2 children are expected to write legibly, fluently and with increasing speed.
Presentation is highly valued at St Mary’s and this is reflected in children’s books and the work that they produce in all curriculum areas. As with spelling, the more fluently children are able to write then the freer they are to focus on other aspects of their writing.