At St Chad’s C of E Primary school, we believe that high-quality English education should not be restricted to just one session a day. We endeavour to provide ample opportunities throughout the curriculum for children to develop their literacy and become competent, confident and passionate readers, writers, speakers and listeners. Speaking and listening skills, reading, spelling, grammar, writing, phonics and drama feature in all strands of our curriculum to ensure that children are not just meeting the requirements of an English education, but that they are immersing themselves in it.
Writing - Regular writing opportunities that are not just confined to English lessons are embedded throughout our curriculum to ensure consistent development of the skills that are being modelled. We follow a 7 part writing framework based on research conducted by the Education Endowment Foundation, which are principally:
Teachers provide engaging and exciting English lessons, based off of relevant, diverse and high quality texts which are both accessible yet challenging, to enthuse children to become competent writers across all subjects. Our targeted English writing lessons cover the National Curriculum objectives for Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, transcription and composition and these are used imaginatively by teachers to create unique unit plans, based around the requirements of the learners within the class. At St Chad’s, handwriting is taught regularly in order to hone children’s fine motor skills and to ensure that all of their writing is legible, allowing them to convey their ideas effectively.
Oracy – At St. Chad’s, we are proud to be a Voice21 school, aiming to transform the learning and life chances through talk so that every child has the chance to use their voices and be heard. We provide explicit and consistent teaching of the oracy framework and talk is encouraged and facilitated throughout the school day: from the classroom, to the playground, to the dinner hall and even during our Collective Worship! Through our intentional curriculum design for oracy, we hope to increase engagement for all learners, develop emotional wellbeing, improve academic outcomes and promote chances of employability for children in later life. As well as this, oracy equips students with the skills to thrive in civil and democratic life as well as promoting social equity.
