At St Joseph’s, we recognise that English is one of the most important tools children will ever need; it is a vital way of communicating in school and in public life, therefore at St Joseph’s it is our aim to make children competent in the knowledge, skills, and understanding of English. 

Phonics

Children in the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 are taught phonics daily through discreet lessons and teachers follow the Read, Write Inc scheme - a rigorous and systematic phonics programme. At St Joseph’s we supplement this scheme to ensure that all 44 grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught, thus, aiming to equip children with the skills needed to phonetically decode any unfamiliar word and become fluent readers.

Reading

We recognise the importance of good quality texts for developing children as readers. Texts have been chosen carefully for each year group so that children are exposed to a wide range of authors, genres, types of text and from a range of cultures. Reading lessons teach children how to develop their reading skills: making inferences, retrieving information, making predictions, summarising texts and understanding word choice.

At St Joseph’s, we aim to create children who are fluent readers who are able to read a wide range of texts and for a range of purposes. We aim to teach children to read for information and to further their knowledge, critically examining what they read. We aim to inspire children to want to read and take pleasure from what they read. We aim to create children who will read for life.

Writing

At St Joseph’s, we aim to create children who have the ability to write coherently for a range of purposes. Children will move from initial letter formation through to the construction of sentences and will then apply their knowledge when writing for a genre. As children progress with their writing, they will develop a deeper understanding of the features of a range of genres and will use good examples as models for their own writing. As they progress, children will consider the audience and purpose for their writing, and will learn how to adapt their writing to suit the purpose and intended audience.

Spoken Language

We aim to create children who have the ability to speak and listen effectively. We aim for children to have the skills to speak in front of a range of audiences and to use the spoken form to convey their thoughts and feelings.  We want children to listen to what others have to say, gaining an insight into the thoughts and ideas of others and respond to these taking into account what they have heard. Spoken Language is an essential aspect of English and the children develop a number of skills through drama activities, discussions and debates – it is vital that children talk before they write.