English (Writing, Phonics, Reading)

Writing 

At St George’s Primary School writing is regarded as an essential life skill. The fundamentals of which are taught through a sequential curriculum of learning encompassing every year group. The objective being to develop in pupils a lifelong, enthusiastic learning attitude towards developing their writing in conjunction with a love of reading. Writing enables pupils to communicate with others demonstrating both their knowledge, understanding and ideas; it encourages expression and the development of higher order thinking. Our aim is to ensure that pupils write clearly, accurately and coherently; utilising different writing styles for different purposes and audiences whilst developing a wide vocabulary and a solid understanding of the grammar rules and terminology appropriate for their age group. By creating a positive culture towards writing in our school we ensure our children are given the best opportunities to develop their capacity and confidence in their own writing. Pupils are encouraged to develop the craft of their writing in conjunction with reading by engaging with a variety of text types to enable all pupils to realise their full potential as they progress through the school.

Phonics

At St George's, we believe that systematic daily engagement with learning phonics underpins all aspects of the development of early reading and writing. As such daily learning opportunities are provided as a matter of priority in both Reception and KS1. The program offered is designed so that all pupils learn key phonics knowledge, whilst developing their skills in segmenting and blending; enabling them to read confidently with both fluency and expression as they progress towards KS2. The impact of daily lessons enables pupils to make effective and sequential progress as well as gaining confidence from the understanding that ‘all children can be readers’. As a school, we are relentless in ensuring we offer the highest quality teaching of phonics so that a love of reading and understanding the written word and access to a great variety of different text types enables children to become life - long independent readers.

We use Read Write Inc (RWI) which is a phonics programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling. It also allows them to spell effortlessly so that they can put all their energy into composing what they write.  It has proven success in all types of schools, including those with high numbers of children with SEND and those in the least privileged areas.  Click here for more information.

Reading

At St George's, we believe that a love of reading is fundamental to a pupil’s success.  Children at St George's are encouraged to read for pleasure from the moment they join the school; building secure foundations for their future academic success.   Working in partnership with parents, we encourage a passion and commitment towards becoming life-long readers.  Our sequential reading curriculum ensures that our pupils are exposed to a wide range of genres giving them the opportunities to discuss the varied use of language through fiction and non-fiction texts. By creating a positive culture towards reading in our school, we ensure our pupils are given the best opportunities to develop their capacity and confidence in reading.  They are further exposed to texts to develop their passion for reading alongside the writing curriculum as whole class texts form the basis for their writing. 

For more information on how to support your child with their reading, click here.

To celebrate National Poetry Day,  St George's invited poet Roger Stevens into school.  He performed some of his published poems as well as teaching the children how to write and perform their own poetry.  The children had a wonderful day.