St Charles’ Catholic Primary School 

Intent for Reading, Writing and Phonics

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, we value reading and writing as key life skills and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers and writers. We believe reading and writing is key for academic success and so, to ensure we have a holistic approach to the teaching of reading and writing.

Children in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 take part in daily English lessons which follow Read to Write. 

Read to Write provides high quality teaching of writing through high quality literature which centers on vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of writing opportunities, within and across the curriculum whilst also providing wider curriculum enrichment. Read to Write also provides clear sequential episodes of learning, model texts linked to writing outcomes, vocabulary learning and contextualised spelling, grammar and punctuation. 

Read to Write enables rich opportunities for wider reading and wider writing for the wider curriculum, curriculum enrichments and explicit links to the national curriculum, as the entire statutory curriculum for English is covered for each year group.

Alongside daily English lessons, all pupils who have completed the RWI Scheme of work participate in a daily 30 minute shared reading session which follows Steps to Read.

Steps to Read provides a clear teaching sequence to reading sessions that explicitly teach reading skills and strategies in a cumulative way through evidence-based approaches. These comprehensive units have been constructed so that the entire statutory curriculum for reading is covered from Year 2 to Year 6. 

The primary aim of Steps to Read is to teach reading comprehensions skills and strategies explicitly.

Steps to Read:

• Is sequenced, coherent and progressive
• Uses language-rich texts for vocabulary teaching
• Includes all elements of comprehension, taught sequentially across an academic year
• Has a clear focus on the skills and strategies needed to be a proficient and confident reader
• Uses engaging texts to promote a life-long love of reading
• Includes poetry, non-fiction and fiction that enhances knowledge learning across the curriculum

Implementation Reading

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, reading is a crucial part of our curriculum. All children from Reception to Year 6 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their reading skills across the curriculum.

• Pupils will take part in daily Shared Reading sessions, where children are exposed to a range of different texts and can demonstrate their understanding and thinking.
• Children have access to a wide range of reading books in school. Each classroom has a selection of books in their class library which contains books suitable for their reading age and offers opportunities for the children to apply their reading skills across the curriculum. 
• All children from Reception to Year 6 are given a reading book to take home and this reading book is changed regularly. We expect family at home to read these books with their child daily and make comments in their child’s reading record.
• EYFS, KS1 and some lower KS2 pupils will participate in a daily Read Write Inc lesson. This includes learning a new sound, and applying their phonetic knowledge to read and write words as well as consolidating their previous knowledge, 
• By the time children leave St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, we expect that they are competent readers who can recommend books to their peers, have a thirst for reading a range of genres including poetry, and participate in discussions about books, including evaluating an author’s use of language and the impact this can have on the reader.
• Children will have the opportunity to read for pleasure and listen to high quality texts to promote a love of learning. 

Writing

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, writing is a crucial part of our curriculum. All children from Reception to Year 6 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills across the curriculum.

To write effectively pupils will have opportunities to:

• Plan, revise and evaluate their writing
• Focus on developing effective transcription and effective composition
• Develop an awareness of the audience, purpose and context
• Develop an increasingly wide knowledge of vocabulary and grammar  Use fluent, legible and speedy handwriting

Spelling

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, spelling is a crucial part of our curriculum. All children from Reception to Year 6 are provided with many opportunities to develop and apply their spelling skills across the curriculum. From Year 2 pupils will access the Read Write Inc. Spelling programme. 

To spell effectively pupils will:

• Understand the relationships between words and nuances in meaning
• Develop their understanding of, and ability to use, figurative language
• Work out and clarify the meanings of unknown words and words with more than one meaning
• Control their speaking and writing consciously, using Standard English

Phonics

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, we use a synthetic phonics programme called ‘Read Write Inc’. Read Write Inc is a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to read and write words. For more information about our Phonics scheme please click here. 

Our English Curriculum English shows which Read to Write and Steps to Read units are taught across each year group and which of the National Curriculum attainment objectives are covered.

Our English Progression of Skills Knowledge and Vocabulary shows the skills that are taught within each year group and how these skills develop year on year to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage.

Teachers

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, we implement our English curriculum intent in the following ways:

• Teachers are provided with their statutory PPA (Planning, Preparation and Assessment) time to plan their reading, writing and phonics curriculum (as required).
• Teachers assess children regularly against the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum in Years 1-6 and against the Reading Early Learning Goal in EYFS. These regular assessments inform planning and allow teachers to identify any gaps in learning.
• Teachers who teach phonics also complete regular Read Write Inc. assessments and plot children onto a tracking grid, which ensures children are grouped appropriately in phonics sessions.

Impact

At St Charles’ Catholic Primary School, we measure the impact of our English curriculum in the following ways:

Reading, Writing and Phonics

• Attainment in reading is measured using the statutory assessments at the end of Key Stage One and Two. These results are measured against the reading attainment of children nationally.
• Attainment in reading is measured termly using NFER assessments at the end of  Year 1, Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 and half termly using Accelerated Reader.
• Attainment in wring is measured using the statutory assessment expectations at the end of Key Stage One and Two. These results are measured against the writing attainment of children nationally.
• Attainment in writing is measured termly using Teacher Assessment at the end of  Year 1, Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5.  
• Attainment in Grammar Spelling ad Punctuation is measured using the statutory assessment expectations at the end of Key Stage Two. These results are measured against the writing attainment of children nationally.
• Attainment in Grammar Spelling and Punctuation is measured termly using NFER assessments at the end of  Year 1, Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5.
• Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year One.

Our Beliefs

We firmly believe that reading is the key to all learning and so the impact of our reading curriculum goes beyond the results of the statutory assessments. We give all children the opportunity to enter the magical worlds that books open up to them and we promote reading for pleasure as part of our reading curriculum. Children are encouraged to develop their own love of genres and authors and to review their books objectively. This enhances a deep love of literature across a range of genres, cultures and styles.

 We firmly believe that developing children as writers is so much more than asking them to remember grammatical constructions or tricky spellings. It is a complicated and intricate process. If we enable a child to become a writer then we have given them a voice, supported them to communicate and provided them with a skill that is vital for all of their schooling and to their life beyond.

‘In every writer, there is a reader.

Give them reading. Let them lift the words off the printed page to enrich their own written work.’

THE CURRICULUM BY YEAR GROUP

Reception-curriculum

Y1-English-curriculum

Y2-English-curriculum

Y3-English-curriculum

Y4-English-curriculum

Y5-English-curriculum

Y6-English-curriculum