St Margaret's Church of England Primary School
English
Here are some photographs of our English learning:
Reading
Children in Early Years and Key stage 1 follow the Read Write Inc programme for phonics. This synthetic, structural programme teaches children to read by progressively learning the phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters) which make up the English language. For more information please visit our Phonics Page.
After children have completed the Read Write inc programme in Year 2, we follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme Pathways to Read. Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for reading. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the reading activities provided.
We deliver three whole class reading lessons per week from years 2-6 which include bespoke reading for every pupil at least once a week as well as individual reading. For pupils still needing support with phonics from years 2-6, we provide an individual reading programme that has phonically decodable texts at the heart of it. In our shared reads, there is a clear teaching focus with the opportunity to master key reading skills in each session. There are follow on reading tasks to enable pupils to evidence the skills they have mastered independently.
Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Read approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
You will find the end-of-year expectations for reading for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.
We also use Pathways to Write to drive our writing curriculum. This aligns with Pathways to Read ensuring meaningful links for our pupils with texts and topics that are used across Literacy, Humanities and Science.
Accelerated Reader
To develop a love of reading in our school, St Margaret's has implemented Accelerated Reader, a reading programme which closely monitors children’s reading performance, their progress and informs teachers of any targets or areas to focus on. This is child-led; children can choose the book they wish to read, depending on the ZPD level set from the STAR reading test. These tests are to be completed by every child every term and the first week of school in September.
myON® Reader is a student-centered, personalised literacy environment that gives students access to more than 6,000 enhanced digital books from home and in school. Titles are dynamically matched to each individual student’s interests, year and reading level. Combined with a suite of close reading tools and embedded supports, myON Reader fosters student engagement and achievement.
Pathways to Read in Reading Skills Y2
Pathways to Read Text and Objectives and Overview Y2 - Y6
Nursery Literacy Objectives Overview
Writing
In Nursery and Reception, we have our own bespoke curriculum for Literacy. This curriculum is based on the Literacy Early Learning Goals and is taught through a range engaging texts which link to our half termly themes. The overview of texts and objectives are below.
In Years 1 - 6 we follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme ‘Pathways to Write.’ Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided. Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
You will find the end-of-year expectations for writing, reading and spoken language for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.
Overview of Objectives Nursery
Overview of Objectives Reception
Pathways to Write - reading and spoken language Overview Y1-Y6
Pathways to Write - texts and mastery skills Overview Y1-Y6
Spelling
We follow a mastery approach to the teaching of spelling through the programme‘Pathways to Spell’. It is a programme designed to deliver the statutory content of the Primary National Curriculum for spelling in key stages 1 and 2. Through weekly teaching of spelling objectives and development of a whole school approach to word transcription, vocabulary development and proof-reading, the programme aims to develop children as proficient spellers.
You will find the end-of-year expectations for spelling for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a weekly basis, please contact your class teacher.
Storytime
Storytime Intent
St Margaret’s has a uniquely diverse community: at our school over 45 different first language are spoken, over 40% of pupils are entitled to free school meals and pupils that attend our school come from a wide range of backgrounds. Therefore, when developing this storytime overview, books selected to feature aim to acknowledge and celebrate the diversity within our world with the primary aim to empower and educate our pupils. In addition, book titles have been selected through extensive research involving educational specialists, experts such as Pie Corbett, The National Literacy Trust and prestigious children’s book award nominations. Furthermore, staff and pupil views have also been listened to to allow all stakeholders to share their views and be a part of the process; thus ensuring the titles are reflective of the current school community as well increasing excitement and enjoyment of reading.
Other aspects have also been taken into consideration when selecting titles, such as books that will encourage and enthuse pupils of different genders, book that are rich in vocabulary to extend pupils vocabulary including those who speak English as additional language, books with complex concepts to increase pupils experiences and knowledge and thought provoking picture books for pupils who are visual learners to generate curiosity and discussion.
The story time overview is organised into year groups, followed by six half-termly sections. For EYFS, the books are linked to the literacy long term overview for Nursery and Reception, with additional books being selected regularly based on the pupils’ interests. For Key Stage 1 and 2, there are three key focuses: ‘Genre in Focus’, ‘Diversity’ and ‘Featured Author’. The selected narratives are read to the pupils in the order of which they appear on the overview. Supplementary recommended reads are also provided to each year group and teachers may also select supplementary books for story time based on pupils’ preferences.
Ghana - Reading around the world
St Margaret's children have been working hard to supply Enclaves Community Children's Library in Ghana with the books they needed to fill their shelves. The children were delighted to see the result of their hard work.
A Thank You From Ghana!
