English

To view our English policy click above

The English Curriculum at Holy Family Catholic Primary School

At Holy Family Catholic Primary School, we attach great importance to the teaching and learning of reading and writing; believing that great readers become great writers.

We provide our children with rich and varied learning opportunities that help them to become confident and enthusiastic learners. Moreover, we want our children to have a positive attitude towards communication and to be able to independently express their emotions and their ideas. Through our English Curriculum, we strive to teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be 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.

Our English lessons are inspired by and based upon a quality text; a ‘Good Book’. Through exposure to a wide variety of genres, we aim to engender a love of literature and an aspirational approach to reading and writing in general, that will stay with our learners for life.

Grammar and sentence construction are taught explicitly and implicitly throughout our extensive curriculum. The ability to spell correctly is crucial in written communication and we place great emphasis on the teaching and learning of spellings. It is our policy that children across all key stages write using cursive script. All aspire to be granted their ‘Pen Licence’.

Speaking and listening is interwoven in all our teaching at Holy Family. We teach our pupils to speak clearly and articulately, to convey their ideas fluently and confidently and to ask questions to deepen their understanding.

As a school, we offer a wide range of quality resources, including a well-stocked library and ‘Book Nook’. We use the 'Accelerated Reader' scheme to maximise the attainment of all our learners. For interventions in reading, we use Reading Recovery, BRP, Inference Skills Training and Lexia.

Phonics at Holy Family Catholic Primary School

In KS1, we use Read, Write Inc. (RWI) programme to teach phonics.

Phonics is taught for 40 minutes daily in small, focused groups. These are systematic, fun and multi-sensory lessons, designed to appeal to the different learning styles of the children. To monitor provision and impact, learners are assessed termly by our RWI Leader, Mrs Poulter.

We teach our pupils