St Paul's Catholic Primary School

At St Paul’s Catholic Primary School, we aim to ensure that all children learn to read, write and communicate successfully. We want all pupils to achieve their full potential so that they not only develop these important life skills and take their place in society, but also that they learn to love reading, writing and communicating and fully appreciate what joy these skills can bring.

We believe that all pupils should be able to confidently communicate their knowledge, ideas and emotions through their writing. We want pupils to acquire a wide vocabulary, a solid understanding of grammar and be able to spell new words by effectively applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in primary school. We want them to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We believe that all pupils should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing, in part by developing a good, joined, handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school. We believe that all good writers refine and edit their writing over time, so we want children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in all pieces of writing, editing their work effectively during and after the writing process. We do not put ceilings on what pupils can achieve in writing and we do not hold pre-conceptions about any pupils’ ability to make progress. We understand the importance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both grammar, spelling and composition skills, and so we want to encourage a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to understand how to enhance the skills being taught in school.

Classroom organisation:

We teach English as whole class lessons, so that all children have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. Within lessons, teachers and teaching assistants target support for slower graspers to enable them to achieve at an age-related level wherever possible. This may involve a greater level of scaffolding and access to additional support materials such as Writers Toolkits, Word Banks or a greater level of modelling. Rapid graspers are given opportunities to extend their writing in a variety of ways, including through showing greater control in their writing, a deeper understanding of the impact that their writing has on the reader and by using a higher level of vocabulary and grammar features.

Spellings:

Spellings are taught according to the rules and words contained in Appendix 1 of the English National Curriculum. Teachers use the Herts for Learning Essential Spelling Scheme to support their teaching and to provide activities that link to the weekly spellings. Children are given spellings to learn each week and are given a spelling test the following week, followed by a dictation. 

Grammar and Punctuation:

Grammar and punctuation knowledge and skills are taught through English lessons as much as possible. Teachers plan to teach the required skills through the genres of writing that they are teaching, linking it to the genre to make it more connected with the intended writing outcome. Teachers sometimes focus on particular grammar and punctuation skills as stand alone lessons, if they feel that the class need additional lessons to embed and develop their understanding or to consolidate skills.

English Lesson Sequence:

Each year group have a yearly overview of the writing genres, both narrative and non-fiction, that they will teach. These have been planned to ensure correct coverage of the key genres as well as build on skills from year to year. Units will take between two and four weeks to complete, and the outcome of each unit will be an Extended Write which will be used to assess the pupil’s skills against the agreed success criteria. Every narrative unit is linked to a carefully chosen text that acts as a stimulus for teaching the identified text, word and sentence level features that children will be expected to include in their extended writing outcome for that unit. 

Marking and Feedback:

Feedback and marking should be completed, where possible, within the lesson. All marking and feedback is given in line with our marking and feedback policy. Summative Assessment:

Summative assessments will be entered into our school tracker each term. Teachers will use their professional judgement to determine whether a child is working within age-related expectations, above or below. They will base their judgements on the quality of the extended write that pupils produce at the end of each unit, and determine to what extent pupils have met the agreed success criteria for that genre of writing. Teacher’s will refer to the TAFS in Y1 through to Y6 and the as a support for making judgements and to inform planning

At St Paul's, we are using the Back on Track: English package which supports English Subject Leaders and teachers deliver a strong English curriculum. We are ensuring that key skills are prioritised and taught within rich and engaging contexts. 

Our first unit was 'Journey' which we studied as a whole school. 

The children thoroughly enjoyed the text as they found it exciting and were able to use their imaginations.

Here are examples of some of their work which we have put on display.

This year St Paul's Primary School celebrated World Book Day 2023 by children bringing in a clue linked to their favourite book for others to guess.  Along with a fun day of fun activities celebrating our passon for books and reading!