St Vincent's Catholic Primary School

“Caritas Christi Urget Nos –

The love of Christ urges us to care for each other and strive for excellence in everything we do.”

English

English

English Curriculum Intent

LITERACY

At St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School, we follow the National Curriculum supported by ‘Read Write Inc.’ phonics, reading and spelling programme, along with the ‘Write Stuff’ literacy units. Our aim is to promote children’s enjoyment and ability in reading and writing through a language rich environment, using high quality texts and engaging writing opportunities. The English Curriculum is structured in three areas:

  • The spoken language
  • Reading
  • Writing (including handwriting, spelling, punctuation and grammar)


Spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing. The quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak are vital for developing their vocabulary and grammar, and their understanding for reading and writing. Our aim is that every child is a competent speaker and listener. Some examples of spoken language are drama, paired work, group discussions, delivering presentations and assemblies.

Reading consists of word recognition and comprehension (both listening and reading). In the Early Years Foundation Stage and in KS1 phonics is taught daily to support the children in developing their reading skills. We follow the ‘Read Write Inc.’ programme for reading. We promote the importance of teaching the skills of decoding and recognising familiar key words whilst also developing good comprehension. All of these elements are essential to the development of confident and able readers.

Throughout EYFS and KS1, every week the children read in guided reading sessions with the class teacher and books are taken home. Parents are kept informed of their child’s progress through a shared record book. This promotes the partnership between home and school in which reading is valued and through which children develop a love for reading.

Writing across the school includes the study of spelling and handwriting (transcription), and composition. The teaching of spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG) is taught in context with opportunities to apply this learning across the curriculum.

Children are encouraged to see writing as a process and we expect them to develop skills in planning, composing, editing and evaluating their writing. We encourage them to be creative in story writing and poetry and they learn to write for different purposes and audiences.

Spelling is an integral part of the English curriculum. We teach spelling based on the ‘Read, Write Inc.’ programme as this follows on from the strategies used as part of the phonics and reading process. We believe that being more fluid in spelling and handwriting enables the writer to focus on compositional skills.

PHONICS

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read skilfully and quickly by listening and recognising the sounds in the spoken language and by teaching the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling.

At St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School, we follow the Ruth Miskin’s ‘Read Write Inc.’ scheme.

Throughout Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 the children receive a daily phonics lesson which lasts for about 20 minutes. As the children progress through the programme they are introduced to the 44 phonemes of the English language and are taught to read and write words with increasing complexity.

The Programme

Learning Set 1 Speed Sounds

  • These are the Set 1 Speed Sounds written with one letter (phonemes):
    m a s d t i n p g o c k u b f e l h r j v y w z x
  • These are the sounds written with two letters (digraphs):
    sh th ch qu ng nk ck

Learning to blend Set 1 Speed Sounds

  • As soon as children know the first five sounds at speed and in and out of order they are taught to blend.
    m-a-t mat
    c-a-t cat
    g-o-t got
    f-i-sh fish
    s-p-o-t spot
    b-e-s-t best
    s-p-l-a-sh splash
  • At this point children will be reading sound blending books which they will also take home.

Learning Set 2 Speed Sounds

  • These are the Set 2 Speed Sounds:
    ay ee igh ow (as in blow) oo (as in zoo)
    oo (as in look) ar or air ir ou (as in out) oy
  • Children will read the books at Red Ditty level, then Green level and then Purple level.

Learning Set 3 Speed Sounds

  • These are Set 3 Speed Sounds:
    ea (as in tea)
    oi (as in spoil)
    a–e (as in cake)
    i–e (as in smile)
    o–e (as in home)
    u–e (as in huge)
    aw (as in yawn)
    are (as in care)
    ur (as in nurse)
    er (as in letter)
    ow (as in brown)
    ai (as in snail)
    oa (as in goat)
    ew (as in chew)
    ire (as in fire)
    ear (as in hear)
    ure (as in pure)
  • Read the books at Pink level, then Orange level and then Yellow level
  • Reading books with Set 1, 2 and 3 Speed Sounds
  • Once children have learnt all the set 1, set 2 and set 3 sounds they are ready to read blue and grey level books.
  • It is recommended that children read each book three times: once to read the words correctly, a second time with more fluency, and a third time in a ‘storyteller voice’ that shows their understanding.

High Frequency words

As part of the programme children also learn ‘tricky’ words – which they cannot decode but have to learn by sight.  These appear in the reading books as red words.  There are almost 300 of these words that the children learn over the course of the programme.

English National Curriculum Objectives

Click link above to download a copy of the Department of Education's English national curriculum objectives.

Curriculum Maps

Literacy Curriculum Map 2023-24
English Curriculum Map - all year groups

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Curriculum Intent

At St Vincent’s it is our INTENT is to enable ALL children to thrive through the opportunities we provide them with, in order to:

  • Live their lives by the Gospel and Vincentian values instilled in them at school.
  • Understand that everyone has the right and responsibility to live in our world constructively and ensure that we leave it in a better state than when we entered it by living and working through the principles of Catholic Social Teaching in line with the UNCRC (United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child)
  • Experience creativity across the curriculum through specialist art and dance lessons and opportunities to take part in art, music, dance and creative writing competitions.
  • Know the joy of outdoor learning, the rich biodiversity within our school grounds and locality and develop a responsibility for the environment we share as stewards.
  • Understand their place in the world, globally and locally, knowing the history of our school, Mill Hill and the Daughters of Charity and knowing where our diverse community members have their roots across the world.
  • Be ready and well-prepared for their next steps in life, having high aspirations for themselves and for others because they have experienced success and a belief in learning from mistakes.
  • Have a life-long curiosity, stimulated by the driving questions of Project Based Learning approach to the curriculum fostering inquiry and independent learning skills, which give confidence to ask big questions about the world.
  • Be literate and numerate having experienced a rich variety of texts to stimulate and excite the mind while developing skills in investigating and problem solving to enable them to excel in their future passions.
  • Be confident and happy young people that have a broad understanding and tolerance of the world and others around them with excellent communication skills honed by their experience of Restorative Justice and respect of the dignity and wishes of the individual.

Curriculum Context

St Vincent’s is a 1.5 form entry school with 285 children ranging from 4 -11. Children come predominantly from the parishes of Sacred Heart in Mill Hill and St Anthony’s in Edgware.

Children come from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds, speak 17 different languages and hail from 26 different ethnic groups. The curriculum we present, and promote, to the children is an endeavour to reflect these differences by providing opportunities to explore the different countries, languages and customs our children are part of through the projects they investigate. We have looked closely at the context of our school, the backgrounds of the children and how life is for a child growing up in North London today. We have used the underlying principles of our Catholic Faith and the example of our namesake St Vincent to create a set of values which lie at the heart of our curriculum.

We are aware of the changing nature of society and the pressures faced by young children as they enter the next stage of their education. The rise in Mental Health related issues has been widely documented across the media. Therefore, issues such as internet safety and the enormous impact across society of social media are at the forefront of our minds when planning our curriculum. With the current worldwide concerns relating to Covid 19, racial justice, equality and diversity, as well as gender and economic background, we feel it is our duty to prepare the children through a concerted focus on building independence, resilience and communication skills linked to our Vincentian Values.