“You are fearfully and wonderfully made”

 At Culgaith CE Primary School, we want all pupils to experience an inspiring, language-rich and motivational English environment. Our vision encompasses the belief that children will be active global citizens and see their worth as 'Wonderfully Made'. We aim to foster a love of books and reading, alongside a positive culture of writing, for a variety of purposes and audiences and across all subjects within our broad curriculum. 

National Curriculum English Aims

Intent

At Culgaith CE Primary School, we intend for all pupils to experience an inspiring, language-rich and motivational English environment. We aim to foster a love of books and reading, alongside a positive culture of writing, for a variety of purposes and audiences and across all subjects within our broad curriculum. 

Our youngest children will begin their early reading and writing development supported by excellent synthetic phonics teaching taught through the use of the Rocket Phonics program. This gives them the foundational skills needed to confidently segment, decode and build words. During their time at Culgaith CE Primary School, all pupils will be given the opportunity to immerse themselves in a wide variety of texts from a range of different cultures. Through shared texts and explicit teaching, they will experience a wide range of vocabulary, giving them the understanding and power of language that they need to flourish. 

At Culgaith CE School we promote a love of reading across school. Our imaginative and engaging reading areas and our family book mornings give all children the chance to shine and enjoy a literacy-rich curriculum. We use high quality texts across the curriculum and make links between subjects deepening understanding, broadening vocabulary and promoting a love of learning.

Our intent is for every child to leave our care as able and independent communicators, with the confidence and skills required to read and write fluently. They will be thoroughly prepared in all aspects of English and fully equipped for the next step in their educational journey.

  Implementation

At Culgaith CE Primary School we teach Rocket Phonics, have fully decodable matching books, develop Rising Stars spellings across school and also engage with the Natural Curriculum to support our planning and teaching. These schemes support teachers to deliver well-structured and exciting learning opportunities that enable our children to learn, revisit and progressively develop their skills in English at an age-appropriate level.

Phonics 

The teaching of phonics supports children in EYFS and year 1 to develop their phonic knowledge. We use a synthetic approach (provided through Rocket Phonics) which guides them step by step, from learning initial sounds to reading and writing sentences with confidence and fluency. As part of this, children in EYFS and KS1 also begin to learn correct letter formation and early joins, which help them to form a fluent and correctly joined handwriting style. Teachers in these year groups are regularly given CPD opportunities to update and refresh their phonics teaching in line with the school approach. 

Reading

Our reading scheme in EYFS and KS1 ensures that the books children are reading at home match with their phonic ability and reading level. Through our new phonics scheme (Rising Stars Rocket Phonics) we have introduced age appropriate, fully decodable reading books for struggling and reluctant readers in KS2. Teachers also deliver whole-class guided reading sessions using banded books to meet the needs of groups of learners and to practise essential comprehension skills, as well as building confidence and fluency. This also provides ongoing assessment and learning opportunities for teachers to regularly check pupil progress and adapt the teaching of reading as necessary. Daily reading is promoted and celebrated throughout school and we also celebrate our love of reading through family book mornings.

Writing 

We provide regular opportunities for pupils to develop their writing skills across the curriculum. We have high expectations of presentation and handwriting which is developed throughout school through regular handwriting lessons. Our pupils learn to write creatively and for an audience – engaging them in their writing – writing for a purpose. We have writing weeks where we are able to explore a theme creatively and write across the genres. High expectations of writing are maintained across all subjects.

Impact

The impact of our plans is that children at Culgaith School will develop a love of English and literature that they can continue building and develop as life-long learners. Literature will be prominent and visual throughout school through displays, books etc. Impact can also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons, child-led assessment and formative and summative assessments aimed at targeting next steps in learning.

At Culgaith School all pupils make excellent progress in English. This starts with a firm foundation in EYFS.. 

Our end of KS1 assessments for 2022 show that the percentage of pupils achieving expected outcomes in Reading is 71% and for Writing it is 71%. This is supported by the high number of pupils that pass the Phonics Screening Check at the end of year 1, with an 100% pass rate for 2022.

The vast majority of our older pupils are equipped with the English skills they need to succeed at secondary school when they leave us. This is reflected in our end of KS2 assessments for 2022, with 100% of pupils meeting expected outcomes in Reading and 100% of pupils meeting expected outcomes in Writing. Our assessments in English, are also a reflection of the excellent teaching and comprehensive curriculum received by pupils in KS2