English at St Nicholas
The English curriculum will:
English at St Nicholas Primary School
The English curriculum at St Nicholas Primary School aims to ensure children develop a rich and varied vocabulary through developing a love of reading and writing. Children will read a varied and broad range of high-quality texts which they will use as inspiration for their own writing. Children will be asked to consider purpose and audience for their writing and use this to tailor their writing style to meet what is required.
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
In the EYFS, play is a very important part of a child’s development and most learning will be introduced through a mixture of carefully planned play and some adult-led focused activities. In Reception, children will be taught phonics, a method of learning to read words. They learn to read letters by saying the sounds they represent. They can then start to read words by blending individual sounds together to make words. Alongside learning to decode the words on the page, children will also learn comprehension skills. This helps them to make sense of what the words say and what the text means. Together, these skills will help your child on their way to becoming a keen and confident reader. Children will develop their communication and language skills so that they are developing the story telling skills to become a good writer in the future.
Key Stage 1
In Year 1, we follow the SSP programme Read, Write, Inc. Children have daily phonics lessons that link to the phonics intent. They then will read a matched phonetically decodable reading book, that will only include sounds that they have been taught. Red/ tricky words and spelling choices are taught alongside. The children will read lots of stories and will start to write their own, learning how to hold a pencil correctly and telling simple narratives. Children will learn to write in sentences and to put together short narratives, as well as some basic rules around nouns and verbs. This includes using capital letters, full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks. They will learn how turn nouns into plurals using –s and –es. Much of the learning will come from reading, role-play and listening.
In Year 2, children will become more familiar with spelling words using their phonics skills, and will be able to recognise and spell many common and tricky words such as because. They will be encouraged to explore their own ideas through creative writing and poetry, writing for a range of purposes including fictional stories and non-fiction texts. Children will be taught how to use apostrophes correctly and how to write using both the past and present tense. In year 2, the children will begin to join their letters and use appropriate spacing between words. Much of their learning will come from reading, talking, and listening.
Key Stage 2
In Year 3, children will learn to plan in detail, to use imaginative ideas, and to write with a particular purpose in mind; this includes talking about similar pieces of writing, and using these to help them plan their own. Children will begin to develop and use a rich vocabulary and a range of sentence structures. Through using a range of drama techniques they will begin to develop plots for stories and write creative setting and character descriptions. Children will begin to format their writing into paragraphs. In year 3, children will start developing more fluent handwriting skills, making their writing more consistent and easier to ready.
In Year 4, children will continue to build on their understanding of planning from year 3, with a greater focus on purpose in mind. Children will write noun phrases expanded by modifying adjectives. They will begin to use speech within their writing, using inverted commas to indicate this. Through reading widely, they will continue to develop an every growing rich vocabulary. Children use Standard English forms for verb inflections where appropriate. In year 4, children will continue to make their handwriting consistent and increase their ability to join letters.
In Year 5, children will be encouraged to take more responsibility for their own learning. Children will be reading more books that they have chosen themselves, and will write across a wide range of topics (including what they are learning in other subjects, like space). Elements of punctuation like dashes and brackets are introduced, and the children will learn new features of grammar like modal verbs. Their writing will become much more fluent, learning to link across paragraphs using adverbials of time, place and number. Children will learn to identify audience and adapt their writing style using structure and tone.
In Year 6, children will now be expected to understand how to use a full range of punctuation, to write with a wide variety of sentence structures, use powerful vocabulary, and to generally spell words accurately. They may well be fully independent readers, choosing their own books and non-fiction texts based on their own interests. The writing your child does at school will be increasingly confident and creative, drawing from examples that they have read. Children will begin to modify their use of grammar and vocabulary depending on the purpose and tone required. Children will check through their work making corrections and improvements.
How can I support my child with English?
There are plenty of simple and effective ways you can help your child with developing their English skills. Here are a few of our top ideas.
Read to your child
While children do learn about language from speaking and listening, the type of language we use in writing is often different from that in speech. Reading regularly to your child, especially books that they cannot yet read independently, is a great way of developing their vocabulary and their understanding of how language works. For more top tips follow this link https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Parents/ten-tips-on-hearing-your-child-read
Encourage your child to read
Making time to hear your child read isn’t just good for their reading. Through frequently seeing words in print, they will have the opportunity to see how the punctuation and grammar are used to share meaning. When you read, occasionally look at the punctuation and talk about what it is telling the reader to do. For example, you could show your child how a question mark tells you to raise your voice at the end of the sentence to indicate a question being asked. When your child is reading, occasionally talk about why the author has decided to include something and how they written it.
Tell stories aloud
Giving your child the opportunity to tell stories orally is a great way to get them used to structuring their ideas and using adventurous language. If they’re not sure where to start, see if they can retell a story that they already know well, like Little Red Riding Hood or Three Little Pigs.
Spot letter patterns in words
Ask your child to point out words that look like they should rhyme but don’t: home and come; do and no. Point out words that do rhyme even though they look different, too: come and sum; there, bear, hair. This will help with their writing, reading, and spelling.
Find story inspiration
You can find fun story ideas anywhere! Why not raid your kitchen cupboards or hunt through the attic to find lost treasures? Anything from an old hat to a telescope will do the trick. What could the object be used for? Who might be looking for it? What secrets could it hold? Suggest different genres such as mystery or science fiction and discuss how the item might be used in this kind of story. Real-world facts can also be a great source of inspiration. For example, did you know a jumping flea can accelerate faster than a space rocket taking off into orbit? What crazy story can your child make out of this fact? Newspapers and news websites can be great for finding these sorts of ideas.
Give your child opportunities to write
Writing at home can be a great way of practising writing, including using grammar and punctuation to create particular effects. From a simple shopping list to a 5 part adventure story, getting your child to practise their writing will support them with their work in school.
Useful websites
BBC Bitesize has a range of interactive games and quizzes for all age ranges. There are lessons on here to help improve spelling and grammar.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/primary
Crickweb has a range of different grammar and writing games for children to play online, which will help to consolidate their learning in class.
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2literacy.html
Funbrain has a variety of books that children can read online, as well as interactive spelling and grammar games.
https://www.funbrain.com/books
Primary games has a range of spelling activities matching the phonic sounds that the children will have been learning in class.