Intent:

At St Pancras, our English curriculum is driven by the use of high quality literature that is often linked to our topics in History, Geography or Science. Our key text is supplemented by additional high quality texts that the children have access to in our reading areas. We ensure that the children are able to study a range of text types throughout the year and that these are revisited. By immersing the children in quality texts, they are able to explore the sophisticated vocabulary used and produce their own pieces of quality writing. We ensure the children are taught specific SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) skills that are required for the text type studied.

We aim to develop the children’s speaking and listening skills through a wide range of teaching strategies and actively encourage the use of explicitly taught vocabulary to aid their communication, both spoken and written.

We are passionate about children becoming life-long readers and strive to develop a love of reading by sharing books daily with the children. We have devised our Core Literature Spine to ensure there is breadth and range as well as ensuring that it is diverse and inclusive. The children are taught specific reading skills in their reading lessons to enable them to access texts across the whole curriculum and further enhance their love of reading.

Implementation:

Using the high quality text as the basis of our English curriculum, we make sure that we promote the use of sophisticated vocabulary used within the texts, displaying it in the classroom and encourage its use both verbally and in written form. Modelling and studying the use of high quality vocabulary  enables the children to become better readers and writers. Displaying and reading other quality books linked to the original text will also support this.

Our writing curriculum has been carefully planned to ensure each text type is revisited throughout the year therefore giving the children many opportunities to reinforce and further develop what has been previously taught. Re-visiting the text types also enables the children to consolidate the relevant SPaG skills taught. We use quality model examples to support their editing skills and improve their written work.

Our reading lessons focus on a particular reading skill. For the early reading lessons, we focus on decoding, prosody and comprehension ensuring a range of questions are being asked. As the children progress through the school, we ensure that the children are taught a specific reading skill – retrieval, inference, summarising, language, predicting, authorial intent, and again use a range of questions to enable the skills to be practised and embedded. Reading is cross-curricular so we give the children plenty of opportunities in other areas of the curriculum to practise their reading skills.

To further develop the children’s speaking and listening skills, they take part in a range of activities. These include performances, class and whole school masses, liturgies, assemblies, Mini Vinnies, fundraising council, road safety council, anti-bullying ambassadors. The activities are planned and delivered by the children, supported by staff, which develops both their collaborative skills and their speaking and listening skills.

Impact:

The children will make good progress from their starting points, as well as the number who leave achieving at least expected standard. They will have the knowledge and skills to write for a range of purposes and audience and that these skills can be transferred to any piece of writing in any subject. The children enjoy writing and can respond to feedback from both peers and teachers. Every half term, teachers will assess at least one piece of writing against the National Curriculum expected standards and use this to inform progress, plan future lessons and interventions.

Children will read a wide range of books and extracts and develop a love of reading. They will enjoy listening to adults read and success in reading will be celebrated each week in the celebration assembly and in the newsletter. Impact on reading can be measured by children accessing Accelerated Reader to complete quizzes on a reading book and through Y2-6 Reading Assessment data from PiXL. Reading speed tests from PiXL are also used to monitor and inform interventions for children.

The English Subject Lead will monitor the children’s work and the quality of teaching in English. This will ensure that there is consistency across the school and that improvements are made. This will also inform any CPD that is needed.

As a school, we have devised our own Core Literature Spine using the CLPE core books list as a basis. We have carefully selected a range of books, chosen not only because they are quality books, poems and extracts but because they also promote cultural capital, diversity, inclusivity and develop the children’s knowledge of the world. We have ensured that there is a strong female voice present and that a range of heritage texts are also read.

We want reading to become part of the children’s daily lives and strive to develop a love of reading in them by offering high quality books at every opportunity. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, in fact, it is a starting point. But this is our promise to the children of St Pancras, that these are just some of the books that will be studied in their English lessons, read for pleasure and re-read to them throughout their years here with us.

Whole School Overview

Year 2 Overview

Year 3 Overview

Year 4 Overview

Year 5 Overview

Year 6 Overview