At Our Lady of Mount Carmel RC Primary School we strive for children to be a ‘Primary Literate Pupil’. Our English Lead is Mr Docherty.
We aim to develop pupils’ abilities within an integrated programme of Speaking & Listening, Reading & Writing (including Spelling and Vocabulary, Grammar and Punctuation). Pupils will be given opportunities to relate the requirements of English within a broad and balanced approach to the teaching of English across the curriculum, with opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught literacy skills.
From September 2014 we adopted the new curriculum requirements for English. Early learning Goals are followed to ensure continuity and progression from the Foundation Stage through to the National Curriculum. Pupil provision is related to attainment, not age.
Each year group has a long term (yearly) overview for English. We follow the medium term plans outlined in our scheme of work, although teachers use their professional judgement to plan work which is appropriate for the needs of their class, groups and individual pupils. We have recently introduced route maps to plan units of work. Teachers carefully plan lessons which follow the interests of their children.
To teach literacy we teach the children through shared reading, guided reading and writing sessions, as well as drama and other speaking and listening opportunities. We actively promote reading for pleasure and undertake many activities to encourage it. As a school we use the Read Write Inc phonics programme throughout Foundation and Key Stage 1, and Fresh Start for those children who need it in KS2. In KS2 the majority of pupils will enhance their phonic knowledge by also using the Read Write Inc spelling scheme designed specifically for KS2. Grammar, vocabulary and punctuation is taught across the school, both discreetly and as part of daily literacy lessons.
We follow the Pathways to Write scheme which bases each unit of work around a key text. These texts are picture books which provide a wonderful stimulus and foundation for our teaching of English. This approach enables the accessibility of writing to all children regardless of ability and engages the children in order to be much more fluent independent writers.
Spelling
We follow a mastery approach to the teaching of spelling through the programme ‘Pathways to Spell’. It is a programme designed to deliver the statutory content of the Primary National Curriculum for spelling in key stages 1 and 2. Through weekly teaching of spelling objectives and development of a whole school approach to word transcription, vocabulary development and proof-reading, the programme aims to develop children as proficient spellers.
This approach works in partnership with our reading and writing scheme which helps to build up our children's oracy skills and language development. This creates a cohesive curriculum which helps to develop our students as individuals and their overall English ability.
