Literacy

The Intent of our English Curriculum at Holy Family

At Holy Family, English is the core of our curriculum. Across each stage of our education in school, pupils are provided with opportunities to develop and apply their spoken and written English within a balanced, inspiring and creative curriculum.

Reading is the master skill of school and we aim to foster a life-long love of reading in all our children, developing avid readers who can access and appreciate our rich literacy heritage. We aim to provide a wealth of powerful reading experiences to fuel our pupil’s imaginations and develop their knowledge of the world in which they live. We prioritise the development of reading fluency to ensure that by the end of their primary education, all pupils who at Holy Family are able to read with confidence, enabling them to be successful in their next stage of education and beyond.

A key aim for our pupils is effective communication of ideas and emotions, both orally and in written form. Spoken language is paramount at Holy Family, forming foundations for reading and writing. By immersing our pupils in high-quality texts and language-rich environments, we aim for our children to be able to describe their world, expressing their views and opinions articulately. We want our children to use discussion and debate to communicate and further their learning across the curriculum, elaborating and explaining their thinking and ideas. We strive to enable all pupils to develop a love of writing and the confidence to explore their imagination, nurturing our pupils’ motivation to write with purpose and with pleasure.

We believe that a secure knowledge of the English language is crucial to a high quality education and will give the children of Holy Family, the tools they need to contribute positively to the life of the school, their local community and the wider environment as a member of society.

Year 6 children's first Writing journey was building up to writing a set of instructions on the process of mummification. We immersed ourselves in instructions by following a map and guidelines around school, we analysed the key features of a range of instruction texts, we learned how to include key skills, then we researched, drafted, wrote and edited an independent write. They did an amazing job!

In Year 4, the children have been busy learning new skills to use in their historical narrative. The children have learnt about inverted commas, fronted adverbials and how to develop an idea so that their writing is coherent. The children started to plan their historical narrative, which they will start to write next week. 

In English, we have written a diary entry in first person, as Dougal. We followed the learning journey to finish with a final piece. 

Well done to the Writing Trophy winner - Year 6 pupil - Megan! For outstanding effort and producing some fantastic pieces of work!

The video below shows a sample of Year 6 writing from Autumn 1 - this includes writing towards a flashback narrative and a recount of our trip to Eden Camp!