English Curriculum

The links below are the English Curriculum offering at St Mary’s Catholic Primary.

Reading & Spelling

At St Mary’s Catholic School, we recognise that reading is a fundamental skill which children need to develop in order to access all areas of learning.

The teachers select books from the Reading Spine so that children access a wide range of texts. They become very familiar with the texts and can articulate why they enjoy them and how they help to develop their knowledge in subjects.

Starting in Reception, we teach pupils to read following the Sounds-Write programme. This is a phonics based approach to teaching reading and spelling, starting with the sounds children make when speaking and relating these to the spelling patterns used to represent the sounds. If you are unsure of any of the initial sounds covered in this programme, please have a look at these videos for the correct pronunciation. There can be many spellings for some of the sounds in English, so each spelling is taught in the context of a full word.

How to help your child read and write is a free course for parents to explain the Sounds-Write reading and spelling programme which is taught in school, starting in Reception.

We have opportunities for reading daily in school and use a variety of resources to support teaching and learning including our own school library, Lexia and Reading Plus.

Proficiency in phonics also underpins spelling and the associated rules which are taught throughout the school. Each week, pupils are tested on a set of spellings which are either based on a spelling rule or the word lists for each year group.

Reading and Phonics Scrapbook

Writing

Each Class follows the curriculum and long term overview to ensure that a range and variety of genres are covered throughout the year.

To see how the National Curriculum objectives for English are covered at St Mary’s, please have at look at this Curriculum Progression Map.

Parent/ Carer Phonics Session

We had a great turnout for our first phonics session where the children worked alongside their adult in completing a range of phonic based activities. The feedback has been truly amazing and we thank you all for attending and supporting your child in their learning at school.