English

Each separate subject here at St Mary's has a Lead teacher. In English, the Lead teacher is called Mrs Polito. She has oodles of experience as a teacher and her whole persona links to her love of books and her drive to inspire children to become great readers and writers. She currently teachers in Y6. The Phonics lead teacher is the Assistant Head Teacher & EYFS co-ordintor; Mrs Smith.
 
Each subject also has a Link Governor, who supports and monitors progress, in conjunction with guidance from the SLT. In the case of English, this is Mrs Hopkinson; a retired deputy head teacher with her own wealth of experience to bring to each discussion and a fierce loyalty to the SMA community, also.
 
Each class has its own class page, where homework, projects, home communications etc are publicised and shared on a very regular basis. 
 
 
 
Our Curriculum philosophy is below, showing why we do it the way we do it here at St Mary of the Angels.
 
READ as a Writer, WRITE as a Reader

 ‘READ as a Writer, WRITE as a Reader’ is our whole school quality text-based approach to English lessons at St Mary of the Angels. This involves planning an engaging English curriculum, using a wide range of high-quality texts for each year group. We have designed an English curriculum that is centred around both classic and long-standing much-loved books and novels, as well as new and exciting modern authors and texts. We have invested in a range of quality texts, including buying whole class sets of books and novels that each class enjoy as part of their learning.

Part of our whole-school approach is  to immerse children in their class texts, exploring the way authors use language and using  these fabulous examples to develop our children as writers. There is a wealth of research to show that one of the most effective ways to become a good writer is to be an avid reader; to unpick language from books and use this as a model for quality writing.

Our Long term overviews are below. These help to map out focus class texts as well as what is being covered and taught when and where across the school in English, currently. It might also help you as parents to plan and link into the work we are covering and when.
 
HANDWRITING - KINETIC LETTERS HANDWRITING PROGRAMME

Kinetic Letters® is a handwriting programme for use in primary schools.

 It includes four main threads of:

• Making bodies stronger,

• Holding the pencil,

• Learning the letters, and

• Flow and fluency

 

It enables children to develop legible handwriting that is produced quickly and automatically. With the development of automaticity, handwriting becomes a valuable tool and not a hindrance to learning.

The Kinetic Letters® font covers all the letters in the alphabet and is based on a set of rules that have been made as simple as possible to enable fast learning. The order in which letters are taught recognises the cognitive development of children.

 The programme can be used with any reading programme including phonics. Initially reading and writing are taught separately (as recommended by phonics programmes); later on, reading and writing are combined.

 Strength: Writing is a fine finger operation; children must have core body and arm strength to be able to control their fingers precisely.

Pencil hold: The pencil/pen grip must be comfortable to allow writing for long periods (eg exams often last for hours). Pens and pencils with a triangular cross-section assist in developing the correct hold.

Letter formation: The movements to form the letters begin with whole body movements and progress through writing in sand trays to writing on whiteboards and finally writing on paper. In Kinetic Letters®, all the letters and numbers are formed by one of two monkeys, a brave one (Bounce) who goes to the top branch of the tree, and a scared one (Skip) who goes to the lower branch.

 Flow and fluency: Letter movements are minimised to help a fast writing style to develop. There are no lead-in strokes.

Vocabulary 
Some examples of Key Knowledge organisers are below. These help you to know what is being taught and when, for your child. Hopefully, they also give you a flavour of the type of vocabulary and the type of learning that will take place in each year for your child. The current KKO's are on your child's class page. 
 
PHONICS
So what about Phonics I hear you say? Please read on...
Since February half term 2022, we have engaged with the new Twinkl Programme  as our main source of materials, supported as always, by other phonics resources which effectively dovetail in to this approach. Our phonics "guru" Mrs Smith, supported by Mrs Polito, has trained  staff in changes and driven continuous CPD over the past few years sharing new initiatives with Twinkl Phonics program and embedding current practices. The data in phonics is gathered systematically across EYFS & KS1 and over the past two years more children in year 1 are making outstanding progress from starting points. The percentage of children achieving the screening assessment continues to be above the National expectation. 
 
Why Twinkl then I hear you ask?
We know that what we do works well, and Twinkl  aligns most closely to our progressive development of sounds for children, using consolidation of prior learning and building new learning of sounds (phonemes), exploring using these together, and then reviewing our learning. We also teach common exception words, We aim to make it fun, keep it addressed regularly and monitor the success it is having. We have already started the process of involving parents and keeping  them informed - a workshop for Reception has taken place in March 2024. A new one planned for early 2025! These ppts of the workshops are on the Class pages for parents to access. 
Phonics booster interventions are planned from early January. These support children who have gaps in their phonic knowledge and need bespoke interventions. 
 
Our new Phonics Policy Statement is ready and  available here, also.
Our phonic display boards in the classrooms and around school match the Twinkl Phonics Program. They are current and up to date linked with the children's phonic learning. 
You can see an example of a reading session using decoding as the main strategy to read as well as developing fluency. 
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Our Action Plan in English is below
Our Policy in English is below
Some examples of our successes. 
 
Handwriting.
The children have been working hard on improving their handwriting, well done and keep it up!
Pep the Poet.
We all enjoyed a fun day of learning about poetry with Pep the Poet!
SMA Strategies to Remove Potential Barriers of Learning.
Through adaptive teaching strategies we aim to support all learners to access the Literacy Curriculum. 
Please see the document below for strategies used to address potential barriers.