“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”
–  Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

Rationale

At St Peter's Primary we strongly believe in quality key texts being the cornerstone of all English teaching. Children at our school are engendered with a love of reading and immersed in an environment that is aspirational and vocabulary rich.

There are four areas of focus in the way we teach English at St Peter’s Primary School. These are Reading, Writing, Spelling and GPS; we embed all of the above areas across the course of the week. 

Writing

For each unit of work (key text) the children are expected to produce at least two pieces of high quality writing. This will include a nonfiction piece. After each piece of writing, the children are given the opportunity to edit and improve-  purple pen editing. This is not a short task but a focused stand-alone lesson which highlights the importance of being a reflective learner.

There are three essential components in the way we teach writing at St Peter’s Primary. These are the deconstruction, e-plan and success criteria.

Deconstruction: The children analyse a quality piece of text of the same genre as the piece they themselves will write. This will be a teacher written piece of extremely high quality; by writing it oneself we believe we gain a deeper understanding of the task which the children then have to undertake. Children identify applicable key features and narrative techniques which truly helps them to gain a deeper understanding of the task which they then undertake.

E-plan: Having gained a clear understanding of the genre the children now plan their writing using the e-plan format.

Success criteria: Children- with guidance from the teacher- write their own success criteria for each piece of writing. By doing so, it enables the children to take ownership of a piece and have a clearer understanding of the steps to success. 

Spelling

Spelling will be taught using the statutory spelling lists and agreed spelling strategies. Each morning OR afternoon, the children will be given a selection of these words to practise using agreed strategies.

GPS

GPS is embedded throughout EVERY English lesson, ensuring that the correct terminology is in constant use e.g. adverbial opener as opposed to ‘ly’ opener.