English begins in Reception through the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, where children develop the foundational skills, knowledge and confidence needed to become successful readers and writers. The teaching of English is primarily rooted in the areas of Communication and Language and Literacy, with links across the wider EYFS curriculum.

Within Communication and Language, children develop their listening, attention and understanding, as well as their speaking skills. They are encouraged to listen carefully, respond to questions, express their ideas and develop an increasingly rich vocabulary. Nursery rhymes, songs, rhymes and repeated refrains are used regularly to develop children's listening skills, vocabulary, rhythm, rhyme and confidence in speaking. These experiences provide important foundations for effective communication and later reading and writing.

Within Literacy, children develop a love of reading through high-quality stories, poems, nursery rhymes and non-fiction texts. They develop their comprehension by discussing what they have read and heard, making predictions, answering questions and sharing their responses to texts. Regular opportunities to learn and recite nursery rhymes and songs support children's understanding of rhyme, rhythm, language and vocabulary, while also helping to develop their awareness of sounds in words. Through word reading and phonics, children learn to recognise and blend sounds, building the early reading skills needed for fluency.

Children are also introduced to the foundations of writing and transcription. They develop gross and fine motor control, practise forming letters, learn to write their name and begin to represent sounds and words in writing. Alongside this, children develop composition by talking about and organising their ideas, creating their own narratives and writing for different purposes.

The Reception curriculum provides a strong foundation for the expectations of Year 1. By the end of Reception, children are supported to have developed the communication, phonics, reading, handwriting, spelling and composition skills necessary to access the Year 1 English curriculum. Teachers use assessment and ongoing observations to identify children's starting points and ensure that learning is carefully built upon as children move into Key Stage 1.

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that pupils build knowledge and develop skills progressively over time. We use Literacy Tree to support curriculum design, drawing carefully on its progression of knowledge and skills to ensure learning builds securely from pupils’ starting points towards increasingly complex concepts and outcomes.

The scheme is not used as an off-the-shelf curriculum. Leaders and teachers carefully select, adapt and supplement its content to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum and the needs of our pupils. This includes adding our own learning where appropriate and considering pupils’ backgrounds, cultures, experiences and local context, ensuring that the curriculum is relevant, representative and ambitious for the children at St Nicholas.

Progression mapping is carefully applied across our mixed-age classes, ensuring pupils access their age-appropriate curriculum entitlement while making meaningful connections with learning across the class. Teachers use progression documents to identify what pupils should know, understand and be able to do, building deliberately on prior learning, avoiding unnecessary repetition and preparing pupils for what comes next.

This ensures that, while Literacy Tree provides a strong structure and progression framework, the curriculum pupils experience is distinctly our own: carefully designed, inclusive and responsive to the St Nicholas community.

At our primary school, we are committed to providing a broad, balanced and ambitious English curriculum that fully meets the requirements of the National Curriculum for English. Our curriculum is carefully sequenced to ensure that pupils build progressively on their knowledge, skills and understanding as they move through the school.

Our teaching provides comprehensive coverage of the statutory programmes of study for English: spoken language, reading and writing. Within writing, we explicitly teach and develop both transcription and composition, ensuring that pupils develop secure skills in handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation alongside the ability to generate, organise and communicate ideas effectively for a range of purposes and audiences.

Pupils are given frequent opportunities to apply their English skills across the curriculum and in meaningful contexts. Through high-quality texts, rich vocabulary and purposeful opportunities to read, write, discuss and present their ideas, we aim to develop confident, fluent and articulate communicators.

The progression of knowledge and skills across each year group ensures that all statutory National Curriculum objectives are covered, revisited and embedded. Assessment is used to identify pupils’ strengths and areas for development, enabling teachers to adapt teaching and provide appropriate support and challenge.

Through our English curriculum, we aim to ensure that every pupil leaves primary school with the knowledge, skills and confidence to read fluently, write accurately and effectively, communicate clearly and use English successfully in their future education and beyond.

At the end of each writing outcome, the children will have the opportunity to complete an independent write. They should refer back to their plan, any incidental writes they have done and any sentence work to help compose this final write. Teachers will then assess the independent write (once the children have independently edited) against the success criteria for that specific writing outcome.

We use an ongoing process of assessment for writing at St Nicholas. We use a range of methods to support our assessment of children’s writing:

• Use of writing success criteria
• Peer assessment
• Self-assessment
• Marking of work (refer to marking policy)
• Termly moderation conversations
• Monitoring sheet of writing objectives at the back of the book

Enrichment is an important part of English at St Nicholas, providing pupils with meaningful opportunities to develop a love of reading, writing and language beyond the classroom. These experiences broaden pupils’ horizons, build cultural capital and inspire them to engage confidently with literature and the wider world. We do this through: 

• Reading Cafes
• Poet visits
• Poet Laureate Competition
• Tiny Tales
• Konflux
• Theatre Visits
• Author Visits
• British Library learning live streams
• Leeds Book Awards
• World Book Day
• National Poetry Week
• School library boxes
• National Storytelling Week
• Scholastic Book Fair
• Book Club
• Journalism Club

Here are high-quality texts and reading opportunities for English from EYFS to Year 6. Included are a mix of:

• Story and information texts
• Poetry and non-fiction
• Books that support vocabulary and critical thinking

These texts can be used as subject links, class reading displays, book corners, guided reading texts, or stimulus texts for writing. Our Reading Spine provides rich, high-quality texts that act as a stimulus for English learning, while supporting vocabulary development, broadening pupils’ experiences and creating meaningful links across the wider curriculum.

“I enjoyed taking part in the Poet Laureate Competition because it gave me a chance to share my own writing and see what other children had written. I love writing poetry because it gives me a way to express myself and my feelings” -Shortlisted Poet Laureate pupil

“Teachers make English enjoyable because we don't just sit and write. We get to perform, talk, read, create stories and share our ideas.”- a pupil in Year 6 

“I like listening to stories because my teacher makes the voices different for the characters.”- a child in EYFS

“Teachers help us make our writing better by showing us examples and giving us ideas about vocabulary. They help us to edit our work and make improvements.” - a child in Year 4 

“Our teachers help us to choose books that are right for us and encourage us to try different authors and genres.”- a child in Year 4