English

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read lots of books - Roald Dahl

We are passionate about delivering high quality teaching and learning of English. We are committed to helping children develop the necessary skills and knowledge enabling them to communicate effectively and creatively with the world at large, through spoken and written language.

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum, and we promote and emphasise reading for pleasure by exposing our children to a rich variety of carefully chosen literature, both in daily whole class reading sessions, our English units and our class reading books.

Each English learning journey always begins with a high quality text to encourage and enthuse children to write for different purposes. Every year group follows the National Curriculum Expectations for grammar, punctuation and spelling. Each of these strands are woven into each unit of work, to ensure that children have excellent writing outcomes.

We endeavour to provide many creative opportunities for spoken language through oracy opportunities, drama and visual literacy. We expose children to a language rich environment developing vocabulary acquisition from an early age. In Early Years and Key Stage 1, daily phonics is taught systematically using Read, Write Inc. We have found parental involvement very successful when they take an active role in helping with their child’s learning.

Watch Our Video's

Reading spine video

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Our Phonics and Reading Scheme

At the Academy St James we use Read Write Inc to teach phonics.

Read Write Inc. Phonics is a complete literacy program, for 4 to 7 year-olds learning to read and write. Read, Write Inc meets 100% of the DfE criteria for teaching systematic synthetic phonics and helps children succeed in their screening check to boot!

Program progression:

In Nursery all children:

Learn the first 30 sounds in short daily sessions.

In Reception all children:

Read storybooks and non-fiction books closely matched to their developing phonic knowledge
Take home phonics storybooks to share (red dittie books)
Read with fluency and expression
Learn to spell using known sounds
Write confidently by practising what they want to write out loud first
Work well with a partner.

In Year 1:

Have a 30 minute daily phonics lesson that is carefully match to their needs.
Take home phonics storybooks to share (green, purple, pink or orange)
Are accurate and speedy readers
3 lessons every week dedicated to spelling.

In Year 2

Have a 30 minute daily phonics lesson that is carefully match to their needs.
Take home phonics storybooks to share (yellow, blue or grey)
Move on to a book band reading system ready for Key Stage 2
Children will have the phonic knowledge to read and spell words fluently enough to enable them to understand what they have read and be understood in writing.
3 lessons every week dedicated to spelling

finding out about phonics workshop.pdf