English

The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:
· read easily, fluently and with good understanding
· develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
· acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
· appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
· write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
· use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
· are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate

At St Egwin’s, we have created a broad, balanced and purposeful curriculum which encourages our children to become engaged and enthusiastic about English. We want our pupils to be confident, coherent communicators: armed with a wide range of vocabulary, oracy, reading and writing skills. We also work in collaboration with local schools to ensure that our curriculum is appropriate to needs and likely future units of study. Through our English curriculum, we endeavour to give pupils the skills to succeed in English, other curriculum areas and, ultimately, in the wider world.

‘One book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world’ – Malala Yousafzai

Our English lessons are designed to develop pupils’ oracy, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary skills. Oracy has a high status in St Egwin’s (we utilise the ‘Voice 21’ National Oracy programme): our pupils are taught to speak clearly and confidently, to ask questions and to convey their own ideas. We also work in collaboration with local schools to ensure that our curriculum is appropriate to needs and likely future units of study.
Reading, in our view, is the foundation of all English skills and is transferrable to every curriculum area. All of our KS2 pupils and selected KS3 pupils are enrolled into the Accelerated Reader programme. Pupils’ frequency of reading and understanding are rigorously and routinely checked, allowing teaching staff to intervene, encourage, reward and support as appropriate. Parents are encouraged to monitor and support their children’s reading at home – communicating through our school planners. Additionally, pupils are taught reading skills explicitly through reciprocal reading sessions. Pupils learn to work on their vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation and retrieval skills (VIPERS) in these sessions. St Egwin’s also offers lunchtime reading clubs, peer ‘Book Buddies’ and celebrates events such as World Book Day in order to raise the profile of reading for pleasure for our children.
We want our pupils to be able to write for a wide range of purposes and audiences. Writing skills in KS2 are taught by English specialists alongside cross-curricular topic units. This allows the children the opportunity to apply their writing skills for a purpose eg a scientific report about the importance of water; an ‘in-role’ memoire of a WW2 evacuee; a persuasive letter to the National Museum about Benin artefacts. A range of multi-media resources are utilised to better engage pupils whilst teachers employ various strategies such as shared writing, modelling and peer-assessment to teach the planning, drafting, editing and presentation of writing. In KS3, our writing curriculum has been planned to offer opportunities to write creatively and analytically across a wide range of genres.
We participate in external writing projects such as Evesham’s ‘Festival of Words’. Effort, originality and excellence in pupils’ writing is rewarded through praise and house points in class, and is celebrated with certificates in our celebration assembly