English Curriculum at St Thomas Primary School
Our English Curriculum is built on a foundation of building communication and language skills, starting in the Early Years Foundation Stage with learning through play, a talk-centred classroom and continuous opportunities to build vocabulary and speaking and listening skills. We utilise “Turn to Your Partner” opportunities which allow all children time to talk, listen and contribute to class discussions, expanding their ideas and using ambitious vocabulary choices. In all year groups, we encourage and celebrate independent reading and writing at every opportunity, carefully scaffolding children’s learning of key skills to support them to become increasingly independent. Our English ethos is rooted in establishing a culture of reading for pleasure and enthusiastic writing for a purpose.
Reading
Our Reading Intent
At St Thomas Primary, we believe Reading is the foundation to independent learning. Our curriculum should not only give children the skills to decode words and read texts fluently, but should also build a love of reading for pleasure and information, allowing children to develop a sense of curiosity about the world around them and inspire them to be life-long learners. Children who read for enjoyment everyday develop broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures. Our curriculum is delivered through explicit synthetic phonics sessions, guided and whole class reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent reading and hearing carefully chosen quality texts read aloud every day.
Children are encouraged to read at home and parents are supported with this through communication with the teacher, parents evenings, home school reading diaries and Reading Information sessions. We quickly identify and support children who are dropping behind so that all children, no matter their starting point and particularly those who have been under-served, are given the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in life. We aspire to develop fluent, enthusiastic, critical readers who understand what they have read and can apply their knowledge across the curriculum. We aspire to build a school environment where reading is consistently celebrated, encouraged and supported.
St Thomas Reading Ladder (pdf)
Reading Implementation
Read Write Inc.
Our pupils learn to read and write effectively and quickly using the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme. Across Key Stage 1, children are grouped according to their phonics understanding so teaching is targeted to their specific needs. Children are assessed regularly with the aim of moving them through the programme, developing strong decoding skills, fluency and comprehension.
RWI Phonics programme is for:
- Pupils in Year R to Year 2 who are learning to read and write
- Any pupils in Years 2-4 who need to catch up rapidly
- Struggling readers in Years 5 and 6 who receive intervention using RWI resources and structure
In RWI Phonics, children:
- Decode letter-sound correspondences quickly and effortlessly, using their phonic knowledge and skills
- Read common exception words on sight
- Understand what they read
- Read aloud with fluency and expression
- Write confidently, with a strong focus on vocabulary and grammar
- Spell quickly and easily by segmenting the sounds in words
- Acquire good handwriting
- Develop comprehension skills during the final stage of the programme (usually in Year 2) as preparation for the next step in their reading journey
Accelerated Reader
Once the children are fully confident with reading having followed the RWI programme, usually towards the end of Year 2, they take a STAR reading test. These are used termly throughout Key Stage 2 to provide the children’s reading age and Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This ensures children are reading books at a level that is providing enough challenge but also with enough success to develop their enjoyment of reading. The STAR test also provides teachers with diagnostic information if there is a need for intervention. Children use their ZPD to choose books from the library. Once they finish their book, they are able to take a quiz, which encourages them to read for understanding. Accelerated Reader allows teachers to effectively monitor reading choices, comprehension skills and vocabulary knowledge so that children can be supported in their next steps.
Accelerated Reader is for:
- KS1 children who have progressed beyond RWI
- Children in Years 3-6
Accelerated Reader pupils will:
- Read books that are carefully selected for their reading level
- Aim to read with 90% accuracy
- Read daily for at least 20 mins at school
- Be encouraged to read daily at home
- Quiz within 24 hours of finishing a book
- Read a range of books and genres, especially including those which celebrate diversity and equality, exposing children to “windows” (books which allow children to look into the lives of all children) and “mirrors” (books which allow children to see themselves represented in a text).
VIPERS Comprehension
Alongside Accelerated Reader, children in Years 3-6 are taught specific reading skills through a daily 20-minute whole-class guided reading session. VIPERS is used to recall the 6 domains of the reading curriculum. VIPERS stands for
Vocabulary
Inference
Prediction
Explanation
Retrieval
Sequence or Summarise.
These are the key areas that we feel children need to know and understand in order to improve their comprehension of texts. The 6 domains focus on the comprehension aspect of reading and not the mechanics (i.e. decoding, fluency, prosody, etc). As such, VIPERS is not a reading scheme but rather a method of ensuring that teachers ask, and students are familiar with, a range of questions. They allow the teacher to track the type of questions asked and the children’s responses to these, which allows for targeted questioning afterwards. This is taught through a carefully selected, age-appropriate text each week. Each day has a specific focus around the text with children given time to explore the words and meaning behind the text.
A typical weekly sequence:
Reading Impact
Our children will be able to discuss their learning, which will develop progressively as they move through the school. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress.
See our Reading Intent, Implementation, Impact Document for more details. (Click Here)
See our Reading Progression Map for details of progression of knowledge and skills throughout all year groups. (Click Here)
Writing
Our Writing Intent
At St Thomas, we are dedicated to equipping children with the necessary skills to prepare them to be lifelong writers. We use stimulating, diverse texts to engage children and build exciting experiences into our English lessons to provide children with opportunities to expand their ideas and build rich vocabulary. Teachers explicitly teach writing skills and support children to develop increasing independence. This, in turn, builds motivation and confidence leading children to create successful independent pieces of writing. We recognise the importance of writing for a purpose and build a variety of writing genres into our curriculum so that children can make a connection between their learning in school and how this can be applied in the “real world.”
Writing Implementation
The Write Stuff
As a school, we have adopted “The Write Stuff” model by Jane Considine to bring clarity to the mechanics of writing. “The Write Stuff” follows a method called “Sentence Stacking,” which refers to the way sentences are stacked together and organised to engage children with short, intensive moments of learning that they can then immediately apply to their own writing. An individual lesson is based on a sentence model, broken into three chunks:
- Initiate section – a stimulus to capture the children’s imagination and set up a sentence.
- Model section – the teacher models a sentence that outlines clear writing features and techniques.
- Enable section – the children write their sentences, following the model.
- “The Write Stuff” also reinforces grammar through the use of visual lenses:
- The FANTASTICs which are an acronym that summarise the ideas of writing.
- The Grammar Rainbow is a classroom tool that enables the teacher to drive key grammar messages.
- The BOOMTASTIC helps children capture 10 ways of adding drama and poetic devices to writing in a vivid visual.
This direct teaching of writing skills is interspersed with ‘Experience days’ which are designed to enrich children’s senses and, most importantly, keep writing fun!
Through the year, children will be exposed to a variety of different texts to inspire their writing. This will include fiction (e.g. fables, stories, science fiction, myths, traditional tales, adventures), non-fiction (e.g. reports, persuasive letters, biographies, recounts, information texts) and poetry. Units will be carefully considered to include texts which showcase diversity (e.g. in gender, ability, race, religion). Teachers intelligently implement the Write Stuff model in their classrooms, based on the needs and interests of the children. Teachers use the Writing Rainbow lenses from the model to create a visual reference for children to support them in building their independent pieces of writing.
Talk Through Stories
In the Early Years, all mark making and independent writing is celebrated. Children are given opportunities to write independently in their continuous provision and their communication and language skills are developed through daily stories, songs, discussions and explicit teaching. Teachers plan rich opportunities for learning through play to help children build their speaking and listening skills, which underpins their early writing skills. Teachers use the Talk Through Stories programme to introduce children to using texts to inspire writing. Talk Through Stories is designed to extend and deepen children’s vocabulary so that they can understand the books they will soon be able to read for themselves. Children read and re-read rich and diverse texts, learning new words and using discussion as a basis for their writing. Children eventually move from mark-making to writing words, captions and sentences independently and use a few of the “Write Stuff” lenses to provide visual cues for their writing.
Colourful Semantics
Colourful Semantics is a method that uses colour coding to help children understand sentence structure and word meanings. Colourful Semantics is designed to support children to develop their understanding of sentence structure and expand the length of their sentences. The structure of a sentence (syntax) is colour-coded and then these are linked to their meaning (semantics).
Colourful Semantics is utilised in English lessons in Reception and Year 1 to support children with sentence writing. Colourful Semantics is also used in Years 2-6 as needed to support the teaching of grammar, punctuation and building sentences. Colourful Semantics strategies are used in English intervention groups by trained teachers and teaching assistants to support children in making accelerated progress in their writing.
Spelling for KS2
SpellingShed includes all the words – both statutory and the example words – from the KS2 National Curriculum for Spelling for Years 1-6. Each child has their own school account, which they access in school and for weekly homework.
- In School Children have a dedicated minimum of 1 hour per week dedicated to spelling instruction. SpellingShed lessons are based on phonics, morphology and etymology. Each lesson includes main teaching inputs, which are then followed up with additional activities (either immediately after the input or revisited throughout the week) to consolidate the learning further.
- Maths/Science/History Throughout the year teachers will include words from Science/Maths/History alongside the weekly spelling rule.
- Assessment Teachers monitor children’s work in their spelling books alongside data through games/quizzes on SpellingShed to assess learning. Teachers also gather evidence of spelling skills and strategies through assessment of independent writes. Teachers will celebrate the successful use of spelling skills and effort with two certificates per class weekly, one for the child with the highest Shed Score and one for a child who has made significant improvement or effort on spelling in class.
- At Home Children have access to fun spelling games to reinforce the week’s learning.
- SEN For children working significantly below their year group, pupils will be set rules which are applicable to their current working level.
Handwriting
Intent: Fluent, well-formed and efficient handwriting enables children to increase the speed of their writing and helps them to communicate their meaning effectively. With focus on the development of handwriting throughout the primary years, children will develop embedded skills relieving them of the concentration and pressure that would otherwise be required to write neatly. Efficient handwriting develops children’s writing stamina and allows them to focus on the quality of their content. Good handwriting demonstrates pride as well as an awareness of audience. Handwriting supports all areas of the curriculum. Confidence in one style of handwriting will then lead to greater creativity when older, eventually leading to more independence.
Implementation: Handwriting begins with developing core strength, gross motor and fine motor development. This is usually covered in our Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum but specific activities can be implemented for older children as needed. Children will use the letter formation from our Read Write Inc phonics programme at the start of their school journey. Eventually children will progress into precursive script, where all letters (except z) start with a lead in and end with a lead out (except r and x). Once mastered, children will learn how to join letters together. Not all letters will be joined together and these will be referred to as “break letters.” There will be a small break before the letter z and a small break after capital letters and the letters r and x.
Writing Impact
Our children will be able to discuss their learning, which will develop progressively as they move through the school. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress.
See our Writing Intent, Implementation, Impact Document for more details. (Click Here)
See our Writing Progression Map for details of progression of knowledge and skills throughout all year groups. (Click Here)
See our Handwriting Policy here (Click Here)
