St Nicholas Catholic Primary School
English at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School
Our Aims and Visions
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What does Writing look like at St Nicholas? At St Nicholas’ writing is a crucial part of our curriculum and it is our aim to provide pupils with a high-quality education that will teach and encourage our pupils to speak, read and write fluently, so that they can communicate their ideas effectively with others. Pupils from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with extensive opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills within daily writing lessons and across the curriculum.
During writing sessions, we focus on developing drafting and editing skills based around each year groups writing objectives, as taken from the National Curriculum. Alongside giving children the technical skills to write, we aim to nurture their creativity and passion by using high-quality, engaging and challenging texts and resources to inspire writing. We focus on giving writing a purpose and context, developing an awareness of audience, whilst incorporating a wide range of challenging vocabulary and grammatical structures. We aim for pupils to leave St Nicholas’ being fluent and coherent writers, who have been exposed to a multitude of genres, authors and vocabulary.
We aim for our writing curriculum to be an exciting and engaging experience. Therefore, we begin all writing topics with an experience lesson to introduce the book or topic. We aim to give our children an experiences which will entice their imagination and excite them to begin writing. Some examples of our experience lessons include food and tea tasting, outdoor learning and drama amongst many other exciting things.
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Writing Assessment Objectives:
Whole School Reading Spines:
| Year 1 Reading Spine | Year 1/2 Reading Spine | Year 2 Reading Spine | Year 3 Reading Spine | Year 3/4 Reading Spine | Year 4 Reading Spine | Year 5 Reading Spine | Year 5/6 Reading Spine | Year 6 Reading Spine |
Writing Long Term Plan:
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What does Reading look like at St Nicholas? |
At St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, we strive to promote high standards of English which equip each child with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. We believe, reading feeds pupils’ imaginations and opens their minds to a land of wonder and curiosity. It is our aim, that by the end of St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, the children have been exposed to and engaged with a wide range of literature and are able to read fluently and with confidence.
Reading is one of our main priorities at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School. It is a skill which underpins a child’s abilities to access the wider curriculum and allows them to broaden their vocabulary and develop imagination. To ensure the children at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School are given the best opportunity to succeed, we ensure that pupils are given daily teaching of reading that build on fluency and comprehension skills. Reading is taught through the use of targeted questioning (VIPERS) which focus on reading for meaning – teaching specific comprehension skills. VIPERS are integral throughout our English curriculum and feed in to daily whole class guided reading sessions and weekly comprehension lessons. Our pupils are also given opportunities for reading for pleasure within the classroom and in weekly visits to the schools lending library.
We strive to develop a life-long love of reading in all of our pupils. We do this through:
- Reading challenges
- Daily whole class reading with high quality text
- Weekly visits to the school's Lending Library
- Year 6 librarians
- Reading cafés
- Reading challenges
- Reading assemblies
- Range of audio books
- School Library Service book boxes for every class
- Parents reading café
- Parents stay and read
- Bedtime Book Bags
Recommended Read Book Lists:
VIPERS Knowledge Organisers:
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What does Phonics look like at St Nicholas? It is important to us at St Nicholas’ that phonics is an integral part of our school curriculum, underpinning the work we do in many of our subjects. We understand the importance of high quality phonics teaching in developing a child’s wider English skills in reading and writing. Furthermore, we aim to make phonics fun and exciting in order to engage the children and ensure a love of words and reading.
In Foundation Stage and Key Stage One, phonics is taught daily following Read Write Inc, You can find out more about this by looking at our 'Phonics' curriculum page.
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What does Spelling look like at St Nicholas? At St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, spellings across school are taught according to the rules and words contained in Appendix 1 of the English National Curriculum. We use the National Curriculum alongside resources taken from Vocabulary Ninja. We focus on teaching spelling conventions – patterns and rules; but integral to the teaching is the opportunity to promote the learning of spellings, including statutory words, common exceptions and personal spellings. Across school, spellings are taught as a discrete session once a week. The focus of these sessions is to teach spelling patterns and statutory spellings for each key stage. At the end of the week, the children are given a spelling review, where they review their spellings in a variety of ways including: dictation, find the correct spelling and quizzes. The children are given 6 spellings to learn each week and within the spelling review, we recap the spelling of one word from a previous weeks' learning. High frequency words and statutory spellings for each year group are linked below. Please see class pages for weekly spellings.
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Spelling strategies to try at home:
What does Handwriting look like at St Nicholas?
At St Nicholas’, it is our aim that children leave Year 6 with the ability to write using their own style of fast, fluent, legible and sustainable handwriting, as well as other styles of writing for specific purposes. Throughout the curriculum we teach handwriting lessons; we have high expectations that what is taught and practiced in handwriting lessons should be used in all writing activities. We believe that handwriting is integral to a child’s personal development and know that children’s engagement and self-esteem can be improved by their satisfaction and pride in good quality presentation. When the children are in Upper Key Stage 2, they are able to earn their pen licence. We follow the EYFS framework and initial handwriting is taught through multi-sensory activities and mark making before progressing to letter formation and fluency.
Resources to support handwriting are listed below.
Long Term Plans and Progression at St Nicholas
| Grammar Knowledge Organisers | Year 2 - Year 6 Spelling Progression | Whole School Writing Long Term Plan | |
| Year 1 | |||
| Year 2 | |||
| Year 3 | |||
| Year 4 | |||
| Year 5 | |||
| Year 6 |
St Nicholas Catholic Primary School
English at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School
Our Aims and Visions
|
What does Writing look like at St Nicholas? At St Nicholas’ writing is a crucial part of our curriculum and it is our aim to provide pupils with a high-quality education that will teach and encourage our pupils to speak, read and write fluently, so that they can communicate their ideas effectively with others. Pupils from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with extensive opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills within daily writing lessons and across the curriculum.
During writing sessions, we focus on developing drafting and editing skills based around each year groups writing objectives, as taken from the National Curriculum. Alongside giving children the technical skills to write, we aim to nurture their creativity and passion by using high-quality, engaging and challenging texts and resources to inspire writing. We focus on giving writing a purpose and context, developing an awareness of audience, whilst incorporating a wide range of challenging vocabulary and grammatical structures. We aim for pupils to leave St Nicholas’ being fluent and coherent writers, who have been exposed to a multitude of genres, authors and vocabulary.
We aim for our writing curriculum to be an exciting and engaging experience. Therefore, we begin all writing topics with an experience lesson to introduce the book or topic. We aim to give our children an experiences which will entice their imagination and excite them to begin writing. Some examples of our experience lessons include food and tea tasting, outdoor learning and drama amongst many other exciting things.
|
Writing Assessment Objectives:
Whole School Reading Spines:
| Year 1 Reading Spine | Year 1/2 Reading Spine | Year 2 Reading Spine | Year 3 Reading Spine | Year 3/4 Reading Spine | Year 4 Reading Spine | Year 5 Reading Spine | Year 5/6 Reading Spine | Year 6 Reading Spine |
Writing Long Term Plan:
|
What does Reading look like at St Nicholas? |
At St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, we strive to promote high standards of English which equip each child with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. We believe, reading feeds pupils’ imaginations and opens their minds to a land of wonder and curiosity. It is our aim, that by the end of St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, the children have been exposed to and engaged with a wide range of literature and are able to read fluently and with confidence.
Reading is one of our main priorities at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School. It is a skill which underpins a child’s abilities to access the wider curriculum and allows them to broaden their vocabulary and develop imagination. To ensure the children at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School are given the best opportunity to succeed, we ensure that pupils are given daily teaching of reading that build on fluency and comprehension skills. Reading is taught through the use of targeted questioning (VIPERS) which focus on reading for meaning – teaching specific comprehension skills. VIPERS are integral throughout our English curriculum and feed in to daily whole class guided reading sessions and weekly comprehension lessons. Our pupils are also given opportunities for reading for pleasure within the classroom and in weekly visits to the schools lending library.
We strive to develop a life-long love of reading in all of our pupils. We do this through:
- Reading challenges
- Daily whole class reading with high quality text
- Weekly visits to the school's Lending Library
- Year 6 librarians
- Reading cafés
- Reading challenges
- Reading assemblies
- Range of audio books
- School Library Service book boxes for every class
- Parents reading café
- Parents stay and read
- Bedtime Book Bags
Recommended Read Book Lists:
VIPERS Knowledge Organisers:
|
What does Phonics look like at St Nicholas? It is important to us at St Nicholas’ that phonics is an integral part of our school curriculum, underpinning the work we do in many of our subjects. We understand the importance of high quality phonics teaching in developing a child’s wider English skills in reading and writing. Furthermore, we aim to make phonics fun and exciting in order to engage the children and ensure a love of words and reading.
In Foundation Stage and Key Stage One, phonics is taught daily following Read Write Inc, You can find out more about this by looking at our 'Phonics' curriculum page.
|
|
What does Spelling look like at St Nicholas? At St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, spellings across school are taught according to the rules and words contained in Appendix 1 of the English National Curriculum. We use the National Curriculum alongside resources taken from Vocabulary Ninja. We focus on teaching spelling conventions – patterns and rules; but integral to the teaching is the opportunity to promote the learning of spellings, including statutory words, common exceptions and personal spellings. Across school, spellings are taught as a discrete session once a week. The focus of these sessions is to teach spelling patterns and statutory spellings for each key stage. At the end of the week, the children are given a spelling review, where they review their spellings in a variety of ways including: dictation, find the correct spelling and quizzes. The children are given 6 spellings to learn each week and within the spelling review, we recap the spelling of one word from a previous weeks' learning. High frequency words and statutory spellings for each year group are linked below. Please see class pages for weekly spellings.
|
Spelling strategies to try at home:
What does Handwriting look like at St Nicholas?
At St Nicholas’, it is our aim that children leave Year 6 with the ability to write using their own style of fast, fluent, legible and sustainable handwriting, as well as other styles of writing for specific purposes. Throughout the curriculum we teach handwriting lessons; we have high expectations that what is taught and practiced in handwriting lessons should be used in all writing activities. We believe that handwriting is integral to a child’s personal development and know that children’s engagement and self-esteem can be improved by their satisfaction and pride in good quality presentation. When the children are in Upper Key Stage 2, they are able to earn their pen licence. We follow the EYFS framework and initial handwriting is taught through multi-sensory activities and mark making before progressing to letter formation and fluency.
Resources to support handwriting are listed below.
Long Term Plans and Progression at St Nicholas
| Grammar Knowledge Organisers | Year 2 - Year 6 Spelling Progression | Whole School Writing Long Term Plan | |
| Year 1 | |||
| Year 2 | |||
| Year 3 | |||
| Year 4 | |||
| Year 5 | |||
| Year 6 |
St Nicholas Catholic Primary School
English at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School
Our Aims and Visions
|
What does Writing look like at St Nicholas? At St Nicholas’ writing is a crucial part of our curriculum and it is our aim to provide pupils with a high-quality education that will teach and encourage our pupils to speak, read and write fluently, so that they can communicate their ideas effectively with others. Pupils from Foundation Stage to Year 6 are provided with extensive opportunities to develop and apply their writing skills within daily writing lessons and across the curriculum.
During writing sessions, we focus on developing drafting and editing skills based around each year groups writing objectives, as taken from the National Curriculum. Alongside giving children the technical skills to write, we aim to nurture their creativity and passion by using high-quality, engaging and challenging texts and resources to inspire writing. We focus on giving writing a purpose and context, developing an awareness of audience, whilst incorporating a wide range of challenging vocabulary and grammatical structures. We aim for pupils to leave St Nicholas’ being fluent and coherent writers, who have been exposed to a multitude of genres, authors and vocabulary.
We aim for our writing curriculum to be an exciting and engaging experience. Therefore, we begin all writing topics with an experience lesson to introduce the book or topic. We aim to give our children an experiences which will entice their imagination and excite them to begin writing. Some examples of our experience lessons include food and tea tasting, outdoor learning and drama amongst many other exciting things.
|
Writing Assessment Objectives:
Whole School Reading Spines:
| Year 1 Reading Spine | Year 1/2 Reading Spine | Year 2 Reading Spine | Year 3 Reading Spine | Year 3/4 Reading Spine | Year 4 Reading Spine | Year 5 Reading Spine | Year 5/6 Reading Spine | Year 6 Reading Spine |
Writing Long Term Plan:
|
What does Reading look like at St Nicholas? |
At St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, we strive to promote high standards of English which equip each child with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. We believe, reading feeds pupils’ imaginations and opens their minds to a land of wonder and curiosity. It is our aim, that by the end of St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, the children have been exposed to and engaged with a wide range of literature and are able to read fluently and with confidence.
Reading is one of our main priorities at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School. It is a skill which underpins a child’s abilities to access the wider curriculum and allows them to broaden their vocabulary and develop imagination. To ensure the children at St Nicholas Catholic Primary School are given the best opportunity to succeed, we ensure that pupils are given daily teaching of reading that build on fluency and comprehension skills. Reading is taught through the use of targeted questioning (VIPERS) which focus on reading for meaning – teaching specific comprehension skills. VIPERS are integral throughout our English curriculum and feed in to daily whole class guided reading sessions and weekly comprehension lessons. Our pupils are also given opportunities for reading for pleasure within the classroom and in weekly visits to the schools lending library.
We strive to develop a life-long love of reading in all of our pupils. We do this through:
- Reading challenges
- Daily whole class reading with high quality text
- Weekly visits to the school's Lending Library
- Year 6 librarians
- Reading cafés
- Reading challenges
- Reading assemblies
- Range of audio books
- School Library Service book boxes for every class
- Parents reading café
- Parents stay and read
- Bedtime Book Bags
Recommended Read Book Lists:
VIPERS Knowledge Organisers:
|
What does Phonics look like at St Nicholas? It is important to us at St Nicholas’ that phonics is an integral part of our school curriculum, underpinning the work we do in many of our subjects. We understand the importance of high quality phonics teaching in developing a child’s wider English skills in reading and writing. Furthermore, we aim to make phonics fun and exciting in order to engage the children and ensure a love of words and reading.
In Foundation Stage and Key Stage One, phonics is taught daily following Read Write Inc, You can find out more about this by looking at our 'Phonics' curriculum page.
|
|
What does Spelling look like at St Nicholas? At St Nicholas Catholic Primary School, spellings across school are taught according to the rules and words contained in Appendix 1 of the English National Curriculum. We use the National Curriculum alongside resources taken from Vocabulary Ninja. We focus on teaching spelling conventions – patterns and rules; but integral to the teaching is the opportunity to promote the learning of spellings, including statutory words, common exceptions and personal spellings. Across school, spellings are taught as a discrete session once a week. The focus of these sessions is to teach spelling patterns and statutory spellings for each key stage. At the end of the week, the children are given a spelling review, where they review their spellings in a variety of ways including: dictation, find the correct spelling and quizzes. The children are given 6 spellings to learn each week and within the spelling review, we recap the spelling of one word from a previous weeks' learning. High frequency words and statutory spellings for each year group are linked below. Please see class pages for weekly spellings.
|
Spelling strategies to try at home:
What does Handwriting look like at St Nicholas?
At St Nicholas’, it is our aim that children leave Year 6 with the ability to write using their own style of fast, fluent, legible and sustainable handwriting, as well as other styles of writing for specific purposes. Throughout the curriculum we teach handwriting lessons; we have high expectations that what is taught and practiced in handwriting lessons should be used in all writing activities. We believe that handwriting is integral to a child’s personal development and know that children’s engagement and self-esteem can be improved by their satisfaction and pride in good quality presentation. When the children are in Upper Key Stage 2, they are able to earn their pen licence. We follow the EYFS framework and initial handwriting is taught through multi-sensory activities and mark making before progressing to letter formation and fluency.
Resources to support handwriting are listed below.
Long Term Plans and Progression at St Nicholas
| Grammar Knowledge Organisers | Year 2 - Year 6 Spelling Progression | Whole School Writing Long Term Plan | |
| Year 1 | |||
| Year 2 | |||
| Year 3 | |||
| Year 4 | |||
| Year 5 | |||
| Year 6 |