St Barnabas CE Primary School

The aim of English teaching at St Barnabas is to ensure our children leave our school able to express themselves in both written and oral form and, to be highly competent and confident readers who enjoy reading for pleasure.
Our curriculum is based on these skills:

• Speaking and Listening
• Reading
• Writing
• Phonics
• Spelling
• Grammar and Punctuation
• Handwriting

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 across the school home/school reading diaries are regularly monitored. Our main reading scheme is ‘Oxford Reading Tree’ but we also have a variety of reading schemes within our levelled book boxes. 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 whole range of reading and writing opportunities daily, including cross curricular links where possible. In these lessons we cover a range of fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts. Grammar and punctuation are taught as specific lessons and as an integral part of developing reading and writing skills.

We offer support to parents and carers with ways to help with English at home. We hold meetings and workshops to discuss how we approach English in school and we highlight the targets your child will be working on during the term at our regular parents’ evenings.