English

At St Mary's we believe that Literacy is a fundamental life skill. We are acutely aware of the vital role that language development, reading and oracy skills have when it comes to accessing and enjoying education, as well as improving life chances, which is why we are dedicated to placing these life-skills at the heart of our curriculum.

It develops a child's ability to listen, speak, read and write for a wide range of purposes.The teaching of English has a high proirity in our school - starting with the development of children's spoken language in Reception.  We use a variety of teaching and learning styles in our English lessons in order to meet the needs of all our pupils. Speaking, listening, group interaction and drama techniques are used throughout the teaching sequence to develop skills, to engage and inspire. Purposeful role-play is used in the Foundation Stage to develop language and imagination. 

By engaging with a wealth of genres, highly engaging texts with rich and varied vocabulary in addition to inspirational authors, all children develop a breadth of experience that helps them to become confident, fluent readers who read not only to gain information, but for pleasure too. Reading frequently to children, in all year groups, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will gives children the opportunity to thrive.

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