Curriculum
English
What English means at St Thomas…
English is understanding, enjoying and applying the spoken and written word. It allows us to communicate effectively and make sense of the world.
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society.” Kofi Annan
At St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School, we know that strong literacy skills set pupils up for life, and as such, seek to ensure Literacy is the invisible thread that runs through all areas of learning. We encourage children to focus on how to learn and foster literacy skills that can help make us all successful lifelong learners. This comes through our overarching promotion of the St Thomas Learner who makes S=P+A+C+E for their learning. We believe a quality English curriculum should develop children’s confidence and (positive) attitude by gaining a love of reading, writing and discussion. Once this is place they will want to put in the effort and persevere in order to succeed, and therefore gain pleasure and personal fulfilment as a result.
We appreciate that our St Thomas Learners will come to this subject with different starting points and experiences. We will seek to bridge this spectrum by providing regular opportunities to ‘rediscover learning’ by going over past teaching and concepts. This will be done both within lessons and as exclusive time at regular time slots during the day. We will also provide opportunities for stretch and challenge which will be accessible for all pupils through ‘Going Deeper’ challenges which are dropped in throughout the teaching of all areas of the English curriculum.
We understand the importance of parents and carers working in collaboration with school to support their children in all areas of literacy, we therefore encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school.
English at St Thomas...
At St Thomas of Canterbury we have a real focus on the teaching and learning of English. Children will experience quality opportunities to listen to, read, write and respond about a range of different genres.
Speaking and Listening
In Speaking and Listening, children will become active listeners who develop their visualisation skills, subsequently enhancing their imagination and in turn, supporting their reading and writing skills. Children will enjoy recalling, questioning and exploring information and will be able to communicate their ideas and thoughts clearly, developing an awareness of their audience in order to interject when appropriate and maintain eye contact and positive body language. Drama plays an important role in both English lessons and extra-curricular activities and productions. It gives the children opportunities to explore, discuss and deal with issues. It encourages them to think and act creatively, thus developing critical thinking and generating ideas for further discussion and writing. Through drama, children are encouraged to take responsible roles and make choices, to participate in and guide their own learning. Visiting drama groups are a frequent addition to the planned units of work and help to engage the children in their learning by making it interesting and fun.
Writing
In writing, children will draw on their experience and skills learnt through quality opportunities in Speaking and Listening and Reading to write for different purposes. Our aim is that children will become confident, able, independent writers who enjoy and understand the structure, purpose and forms of writing and can apply these skills to adapt their writing to different audiences. Children will be able to express themselves in a variety of different ways using their knowledge of Standard English, Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar and clear handwriting, to allow their ideas to be recorded successfully and their writing to flow. As a result of experiencing a range of texts and genres, children will develop an awareness of authors’ intentions so helping their ability to write for effect with an awareness of the reader.
Reading and Phonics
At St Thomas the children will develop an appreciation of reading by becoming confident in using a range of decoding, comprehension and inference skills. They will be able to respond to a range of texts with their own views and opinions. Through quality teaching, children will be given skills that will enhance their reading; particularly when using expression and punctuation in a text. They will be given rich opportunities to read a range of different texts out loud to an audience.
We teach the early stages of reading through Phonics. We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised synthetic phonics programme. (see Phonics section below for more information.)
In June each year the children in Year 1 have a Phonics screening which is a nation wide programme to evaluate their success with reading using phonics. More information on the screening can be found in the presentation for Year 1 parents on the Year 1 Learning page.
Useful Links
Reading at St Thomas
At St Thomas’, we want to inspire a love of reading for all children, whatever their age or ability. You can find out all about our approach to reading and how we encourage a real love for reading on our Reading at St Thomas page!
Phonics at St Thomas
Read all about our approach to phonics and its impact on reading and writing on our Phonics page!
