English Intent

At St Cuthbert’s, we strive to create a quality English curriculum that prepares children for the world of today and tomorrow. We believe this curriculum should develop children’s love of reading, writing and discussion enabling them to communicate with each other, the wider world and God.  We have worked hard to provide our children with rich and varied learning opportunities that help them to become confident and enthusiastic learners, enabling the children to flourish and grow in all areas of the curriculum. We want our children to have a positive attitude towards communication and to be able to independently express their emotions and their ideas.

Through our English Curriculum, we strive to teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the real world and that all these skills are of equal value and infinite worth. By giving this context to their learning, the children understand the value of English to them now, and in their futures. Therefore, they can then grow towards being global citizens and courageous advocates.

Phonics Intent

Here at St. Cuthbert’s C.E. Primary School we are committed to delivering high quality Phonics teaching.  We aim to provide children with a secure Phonics basis for reading and for writing.  We believe that being able to read is one of the most important skills that children will learn in their early schooling and that in providing the skills to secure fluency in reading, we will help children to develop a love of reading that will stay with them throughout their lives. At St Cuthbert's, we follow the 'Red Rose letters and Sounds' Phonics Programme. We ensure that all home reading books are 100% phonetically decodable and use a hybrid reading scheme incorporating Rising Stars Rocket Phonics and L and S Readers.

We aim to ensure that all children are able to;

• recognise, say and write all phonemes from Phase 2 to Phase 5.
• use phonic knowledge to blend (to read) and segment (to write) phonetically decodable words.
• use their phonic knowledge to read more complex words.
• recognise from sight High Frequency Words.
• apply and understand spelling patterns, e.g. suffixes and prefixes.
• apply their phonic knowledge in their reading and writing across the curriculum.
• read with fluency and write with confidence.
• read to retrieve information.
• develop a genuine life-long love of reading.