English
INTENT
Our inspiring and exciting English curriculum here at St Mark and All Saints will enable our children to foster a love of literature, reading fluently and widely with an ability to express preferences and opinions confidently. Our aim is for our children to read for pleasure, having had access to a wide range of text types, genres and authors in order for them to make informed opinions about their favourites. We want to develop children who write with confidence and accuracy for a variety of purposes and audiences whilst using a rich vocabulary and developing their own individual style. We expect our children to be able to write with grammatical accuracy and be able to apply spelling patterns correctly using a cursive handwriting style.
SPOKEN LANGUAGE
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The importance of spoken language to underpin the development of reading and writing is reflected in opportunities to develop vocabulary and confidence in speaking and listening. Children are encouraged to develop effective communication skills in readiness for later life. Here at St Mark and All Saints Primary School, children are given regular opportunities to speak out in worship, in front of the class when presenting work, drama, debate and group activities. We also have a strong and active School Council, which represents the voices of each class.
READING
Children are taught to decode, comprehend and read for pleasure through engaging texts and a variety of reading experiences as part of the English lesson. To provide children with a breadth of reading opportunities we use a range of reading texts. These are book banded into coloured levels to provide progression and engage children in a love of reading. In Reception and Year One, children take home a decodable Phonics book matched to their secure Phonics level as well as a 'Share with me' book to promote reading for pleasure and enjoyment of different text types.
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We have daily whole class reading sessions from Year 3 onwards to ensure that children read age-related texts and answer V.I.P.E.R.S (Vocabulary, Inference, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise / Sequence) as our method to explicitly teach knowledge and each skill. These whole class sessions are used as a powerful tool to allow all children to make progress in reading and provide regular and supportive opportunities for children to encounter engaging texts that will resonate with their interests and capture their imagination. Carefully graded questions allow for children to develop their knowledge and comprehension skills at an appropriate level.
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HOME READING
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The school use an online reading record app, Boom Reader, for parents, children and teachers to access and record daily reading. Children are encouraged to read on a daily basis and record comments. Books sent home in EY and KS1 are fully decodable and matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids.
WRITING
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Within the Early Years setting, children are encouraged to begin making marks on paper, before learning correct letter formation and using their understanding of phonics to build words and form sentences. At St Mark and All Saints we have adopted Talk for Writing across the whole school.  Talk for Writing is an engaging teaching framework developed by Pie Corbett, supported by Julia Strong. A key feature is that children internalise the language structures needed to write through "talking the text", as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully. At St Mark and All Saints we underpin our English work by establishing a core reading spine of quality fiction, poetry and non-fiction that all children experience and draw upon.
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SPELLING
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In the EYFS and KS1, children are given a set of spellings to learn through a variety of multi-sensory methods. In KS2, spelling patterns are learnt. And No Nonsense Spelling is used to support differentiated spelling learning. A weekly spelling test for KS1 and KS2 encourages children to learn spelling patterns and age related spellings to secure their writing skills across a range of topics.
IMPACT
Children at St Mark and All Saints flourish in their English learning and enjoy a life-long love of reading and writing. Pupils have a wide vocabulary that they use within their spoken and written work to communicate effectively and confidently and write for a range of meaningful purposes with accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation and legible handwriting.
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IMPLEMENTATION
In Early Years (Nursery and Reception) children are given opportunities to:
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Talk and communicate in a widening range of situations, to respond to adults and each other, to listen carefully and to practise and extend their communication skills.
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Explore words and texts in a vocabulary rich environment with a new story or traditional tale every day to enjoy, to decode and to read for pleasure.
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Enjoy rhyme. Did you know that if children know eight nursery rhymes by the time they're four years old, they're usually among the best readers by the time they're eight? Rhyming helps children to break words down and to hear the sounds that make up words in preparation for reading and writing. So we sing songs and have a rhyme time with children every day.
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Begin our structured phonics teaching programme in Nursery and Reception through a daily phonics and writing lesson. We follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme.
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Encourage writing, discussion and storytelling in our role play areas and linked in to the topics we are studying, using the Talk for Writing approach to teaching writing techniques.
Useful websites
