Literacy
St George’s Catholic Primary schools’ vision for literacy is to be committed to every child in the school to meet their individual needs and ability. In order to achieve this every class from reception to year 6 take part in daily literacy lessons based on the objectives set out in the National Curriculum.
Literacy encompasses the following areas: Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening.
Reading for pleasure underpins our English Curriculum as we prepare the children for a lifetime love of books. All children are exposed to a carefully selected range of high quality texts and whole class reading takes place on a regular basis.
The EYFS makes a crucial contribution to children’s early development and learning. We provide children with a rich variety of teaching and learning experiences that are appropriate to their needs. In EYFS a love of books supports a variety of teaching methods and a structured phonics programme in the early stages of learning. In the EYFS and KS1 Children are encouraged to use their phonics skills to spell words as well as learning the Common Exception Words. Alongside structured learning, children are actively encouraged to explore learning through their play.
In KS1, an innovative daily reading scheme called’ Ready, Steady, Read’ has been introduced. Children in small groups are heard reading by an adult every day, this is a structured approach to teaching phonics which combines reading and writing very closely. Children are taught grammar and punctuation rules in line with the National Curriculum. Children are encouraged to use these skills in all their writing, both in their English work and their cross-curricular writing.
In KS2, children are heard read twice a weekly by an adult with follow up reading at home. Children's reading and comprehension skills are developed through guided reading, shared reading, hearing individual children read and comprehension activities. Opportunities for creative writing on a weekly basis with grammar and spelling lessons and where possible links are made with current topics.
The school library is an incredibly important way to ensure that children have a good choice when choosing books, a dedicated space for reading, and effective encouragement and stimulation from books to develop their literacy skills. In an increasingly digital world, we need to teach young people how to evaluate and understand books. We have a Library that is fully stocked with various topic books, including a section of books with different languages. We aim to have the library supervised every lunchtime so that each year group gets the opportunity to visit and borrow books on a weekly basis to enhance their learning.
Throughout the school, presentation of work is very important. The children are thought how to use cursive handwriting, cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. This encourages the children be more fluent when they write and also helps the children to write faster. One of our more popular literacy displays show examples of good handwriting in our school and the progression of handwriting from reception classes all the way through to year six.
The school has a dedicated outdoor reading garden area which can be visited during play times and lunchtimes, children can read without been disturbed. There are lots of initiatives throughout the school to encourage reading, such as; visiting authors, regular book fairs with opportunities to buy books where the commission earned goes back to replenish the classrooms home reading section.
The parents and carers at St George’s Primary School are encouraged to take an active role in their child’s learning. Through the delivery of parent and carer Story Café, we aim to explore the importance of Literacy across Learning, and provide guidance as how parents and carers can best support their child’s progress.
Mrs Smith - Literacy Subject Leader