English

At St James’ we feel that English has a pre-eminent place in education and society. Our children need to develop skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening so that they can express themselves creatively and communicate with others effectively. We ensure that pupils leaving the school are confident, independent and literate learners. We offer an exciting, broad and balanced curriculum that develops the skills of each child to the highest level. Literacy skills are developed across the curriculum. Spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing in our school and speaking and listening is an integral part of the whole of the school day. Reading is a skill essential for life and it is vital that our children leave school able to read fluently, confidently and have a love of reading.

We want to encourage children to become enthusiastic and thoughtful readers who understand and engage with what they are reading. We feel that the key purpose of writing is to communicate meaning and therefore all writing tasks have an identified and clear purpose. The writing process includes forming, articulating and communicating ideas. The children are given frequent opportunities in school to write in different contexts using quality texts as a model and for a variety of purposes and audiences.

We aim to develop the children’s ability to produce well structured, detailed writing in which the meaning is made clear and which engages the interest of the reader. We do this through in depth study of a focus text that provides a balance between poetry, non-fiction and fiction. We use the Fully Cursive Handwriting Scheme in school to help children to develop fluent, legible and speedy handwriting.