At St Clements CEP School, we aim to develop pupils’ abilities within an integrated programme of speaking, listening, reading and writing. Pupils will be given opportunities to develop the requirements of the National Curriculum for English within a broad and balanced range of activities, having opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught literacy skills through their application in all subject areas. Our mission is to provide the most exciting and engaging literacy environment possible - wanting each pupil to develop a love of reading, a love of communicating and to be confident, articulate writers from a young age.

Reading is vitally important to us and has a high status within the school.  We are beginning to transform our reading environment to foster a love of literature with Read Write Inc, the Accelerated Reading Programme, Reading Plus, and by class teachers selecting high-quality texts that the children will enjoy and engage with to use as part of their English lessons, or as class texts.

We teach phonics in Reception and KS1 using Read Write Inc and continue to focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar as your child moves through the school. In KS2, the children continue to develop their phonics skills when spelling, and they are encouraged to write for a range of purposes, viewing literacy and language as a powerful means of self-expression.  Above all, we want to create readers and writers for life, with the skills to succeed and fulfil their potential in the next stage of their education.

At St Clements CEP Primary School, children will develop a range of skills and will work towards being able to:

• Read easily and fluently.
• Read with good understanding.
• Acquire a wide vocabulary.
• Discuss, elaborate and explain their understanding and ideas.
• Be ‘competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.
• Write accurately.
• Write clearly and coherently, adapting language and style in a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
• Know the grammatical terms – developing an understanding of grammar, using and applying it correctly.
• Understand, through being shown, the skills and processes essential for writing: thinking aloud to explore and collect ideas, drafting, and re-reading to check their meaning is clear.
• Pupils should be taught to monitor whether their own writing makes sense.
• Speak clearly with confidence and purpose in a variety of contexts, adapting the style of speech for different audiences.
• Read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding, orchestrating a range of independent strategies to self-monitor and correct.
• Have an interest in books and read for pleasure.
• Have an interest in words, their meanings; developing a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms.
• Understand a range of text types and genres – be able to write in a variety of styles and forms appropriate to the situation.
• Be developing the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.
• Have a suitable technical vocabulary to articulate their responses.
• Take pride in the presentation of their work, writing with a clear and legible style.

We hope to inspire children to love literature and to use the crucial life skill of reading to access the rest of the curriculum and in order to become lifelong learners.

How can you support your child with English?

Research has demonstrated that parental engagement has a large and positive effect on children’s learning. Below are some ideas that you can use to support your child with English outside of school:

Reading

• Encourage your child to read regularly outside of school. Any time spent reading outside of school will make a difference to your child’s learning.
• Support your child by getting them into a routine when reading at home. For example, read as soon as they get home from school and/or read before they go to bed.
• Listen to your child read on a regular basis, daily if possible.
• Talk to your child about what they are reading and ask questions.
• Visit the library or a bookshop to find out what your child is inspired by.
• Look for books that your child is interested in, such as: dinosaurs, history, cookery or sport books.
• Encourage your child to read the book before watching it as a film or on television.
• Make sure that books are accessible at home.
• For reluctant readers, taking it in turns to read a book with someone at home helps to make it more interesting.
• Reading magazines, newspapers, articles online all help to develop your child’s reading skills.
• Talk to your child’s teacher and ask them for book recommendations.

Writing

• Encourage your child to write at home. For example: shopping lists, short stories and Christmas, birthday and Thank You cards.
• Encourage your child to keep a diary.
• Play games that involve writing – ask your child’s teacher for advice on this.
• Practise spellings with your child. Come up with ways to remember how to spell words together – ask your child’s teacher for advice on this.
• Read, read and read. Reading is vital to expose children to a wide range of vocabulary and enable children to develop ideas which they will use in their writing.