Statement of Intent
At St Barnabas, we ensure that our children become lifelong learners who love to read, are proficient and creative writers and can discuss and present their ideas with confidence. Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and developing early reading skills through the teaching of phonics goes hand in hand with developing a passion for books and stories. We are not shy about being ambitious for our children. Our English curriculum reflects our desire to send children in to the world provided with the skills and interests for a successful and positive future.
We know that reading is every child’s passport to success for learning and their future. Reflecting our school vision of Inspire, Nurture and Achieve and with the changing world in mind, children take the lead to discuss and challenge key issues with kindness and empathy. From the very outset all children have access to a high quality oracy education. In practice this means that children develop their vocabulary and have daily opportunities to develop their talk for learning.
We have an inspirational programme of author visits, which broaden horizons, motivates our readers and raises aspirations. Children are given exciting and purposeful opportunities to write throughout the curriculum and view themselves as writers, authors, journalists, scientists, historians and musicians among many other roles. Our writing is inspired by quality, diverse and representative texts and real life experiences across every year group. Children are taught systematically the relationship between sounds and written spelling patterns and, a clear handwriting style so that they have the tools needed to be a confident writer by the time they leave our school in Year 6.
Our English curriculum is embedded across all learning and develops the whole child ready for their next steps.
Our phonics scheme is Read Write Inc.
Scroll down to read all about it.
Learning in English
To support our phonics, reading and writing teaching we use the ‘Read Write Inc.’ scheme throughout our school. This is a rigorous and dynamic literacy programme where children will learn to blend letter sounds following a fun and effective progression. All the children are assessed and then placed into a phonics group at the appropriate level for them. At Key Stage 2 some children will take part in phonics catch up programmes.
We encourage parents and carers to be partners in helping to develop their children’s reading skills. Daily adult support is very important in encouraging and listening to children read and discussing their books with them. At Key Stage 1 children are heard read weekly and the school home/school reading diaries are regularly monitored. Our children follow the Read , Write, Inc reading scheme and all children take home phonetically plausible books. Children are encouraged to change their reading books daily.
At St Barnabas we also have a very well stocked library. Children are actively encouraged to visit the library any lunchtime and can borrow fiction and non–fiction books to read at home or support homework. In Reception classes children can borrow a bedtime story.
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPAG) is taught regularly either through the Read Write Inc. scheme or as part of daily English lessons.
We provide a wide range of reading and writing opportunities daily, with a variety of cross curricular links. We use a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts across the curriculum.
We offer support to parents and carers including ways to help with English at home. We hold meetings and workshops to discuss how we approach English across the school and we share the targets your child will be working on during the term at our regular parents’ evenings.
CBeebies Bedtime Stories
Alphablocks
Initial Sounds
Oxford Owl
Phonics Pop
Starfall
Tricky Words
Teach Your Monster To Read
Please Note: Links on this page will open external web-sites. As we have no control over availability or content, although we do our best to check these links work and the content is appropriate for the age groups recommended, we cannot be responsible for these links. Please feel free to contact the school if you have any issues with the sites listed here.
In addition, some links on this page require Flash Player to be installed. If you are accessing these sites using an iPad or other tablet, Flash may not be available and therefore the site may not work.
Spelling Games
Clickweb Literacy Games
Phonics & Literacy
Punctuation
Oxford Owl
Top Marks
Crickweb Literacy
Please Note: Links on this page will open external web-sites. As we have no control over availability or content, although we do our best to check these links work and the content is appropriate for the age groups recommended, we cannot be responsible for these links. Please feel free to contact the school if you have any issues with the sites listed here.
In addition, some links on this page require Flash Player to be installed. If you are accessing these sites using an iPad or other tablet, Flash may not be available and therefore the site may not work.
BBC Bitesize Writing
BBC Bitesize Grammar, punctuation and spelling
BBC Bitesize Reading and writing
Please Note: Links on this page will open external web-sites. As we have no control over availability or content, although we do our best to check these links work and the content is appropriate for the age groups recommended, we cannot be responsible for these links. Please feel free to contact the school if you have any issues with the sites listed here.
In addition, some links on this page require Flash Player to be installed. If you are accessing these sites using an iPad or other tablet, Flash may not be available and therefore the site may not work.
