At St. Helen’s Catholic Primary School, we believe that a quality Literacy (English) curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion.  We have a rigorous and balanced curriculum that provides many purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and discussion. Our curriculum closely follows the aims of the National Curriculum for English 2014 to enable all children to:

• to develop a love of language and acquire a wide vocabulary.
• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
• write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
• use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
• are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

At St Helens we want all children to develop a love of language for language’s sake. We aim to develop our children’s ability to use spoken and written language to communicate effectively – to listen, speak, read and write both in and for a wide range of contexts, purpose and audiences. 

 We want our children to read fluently and with confidence in any subject by the time they are ready to move to secondary school. We want our children to love reading and to want to read for themselves.

We want our children to acquire a wide vocabulary, a good understanding of grammar in context and to be able to spell new words by applying the spelling patterns and rules they learn throughout their time in our school. 

We want our children to write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style as necessary. We believe that all children should be encouraged to take pride in the presentation of their writing and aim to develop a legible, joined handwriting style by the time they move to secondary school.  We want our children to understand that all good writers refine and edit their writing before producing a final published copy therefore we want our children to develop independence in being able to identify their own areas for improvement in a piece of writing and edit their work during and after the writing process.

We recognise that each child has their own starting point upon entry to every year group and progress is measured in line with these starting points to ensure that every child can celebrate success.