English

At St Charles, we strive to teach children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the real world. Our intention is for children to have a positive attitude towards communication and to be able to independently express their ideas, thoughts and emotions both written and verbally.

At St Charles we recognise the central importance of English in the curriculum, as no other area of the curriculum is able to operate without it. English is a vital component in concept formation in all areas of the curriculum. Our aim is to develop each child’s ability to understand, communicate, interpret and appreciate the world around him/her. The English development programme at St. Charles promotes the four language components, speaking, listening, reading and writing.

We aim to teach all pupils:

To listen attentively with understanding and appreciation.
To speak confidently and clearly, and to use appropriate language for different occasions.
To read fluently and accurately with understanding, enjoyment, feeling and discrimination.
To communicate in writing with confidence, pleasure and sense of purpose, for a wide range of audiences.
To write completely by developing the skills of handwriting, spelling, punctuation, syntax and usage. We encourage children to use cursive script when writing.

These skills are taught in the context of a wide range of real and purposeful activities.

We foster a positive, caring and stimulating approach to books in order to develop each child’s aesthetic awareness of good literature.

This is achieved by:

Maintaining a rich book environment throughout the school
Allocating specific sessions each day to guided reading activities.
Reading aloud to children, throughout the week, stories and poems, which expose them to the language of Literature and help them to become readers for life.
Creating a partnership with parents involving regular reading with the children at home and at school.

English is taught every day in a variety of ways including the “literacy hour”, story times, discussions, extended writing, word processing and desktop publishing etc

Phonics Programme

Daily phonics sessions are taught in foundation and KS1, using the Letters and Sounds Programme and supplemented by Phonics Play to support and enhance the teaching of Phonics.