English Policy

English is taught daily as a stand-alone subject, split into the strands of reading and writing, which underpins all other subject areas. This is to ensure that English as a core subject is given appropriate time in the timetable and is taught with rigour and practised and rehearsed in other subject areas. At Christ the King, it is vital that the English curriculum is inclusive and challenging for all pupils. Children coming into Christ the King have limited vocabulary with entry levels that are below those nationally, particularly in Communication, Language and Literacy. Therefore, teachers ensure that these experiences and resources form a part of the school’s curriculum to fill these gaps – such as Talk for Writing, novel studies, practical lessons with cross-curricular links.  As there are increased levels of pupils with EAL and language barriers, vocabulary is also given a central focus.

Christ the King follows the National Curriculum for English in all year groups to enable children to make good progress from Reception to Year 6.  Teachers make links to knowledge acquired in previous year groups explicit and adapt lessons so that all children can participate and reach end of year expectations. Reading skills, phonics, spellings and grammar are rigorously taught through a sequenced and systematic curriculum . There are ample opportunities for children to use and apply these skills across the curriculum. Development of speaking and listening skills are deeply embedded within and across all subject areas in order for children to communicate effectively and confidently.

Phonics

At CTK, we use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, a complete systematic and synthetic phonics program. Little Wandle is a rigorous and ambitious approach to teaching phonics, delivered daily to our Reception and Year 1 children.

To find out how our phonics curriculum is planned and sequenced overall, please click here.

To find out how our phonics program is sequenced in Reception, please click here.

To find out how our phonics program is sequenced in Year 1, please click here.

Parents, for support with phonics, to know how we teach phonics and to learn more about books coming home, please click here.

Reading

Reading is at the heart of all we do at CTK and a love of reading and a rich diet of story, rhyme and song are central to children’s learning from their very first day.

Please click here to see our literature spine. These are the books the children are exposed to in their English writing lessons and read to by their class teacher during DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time.

From Reception to Year 6, all children experience lively and engaging reading of high-quality texts daily. We aim for all children at CTK to leave having experienced a great passion for reading and are able to use and apply their rich reading skills throughout their life and their secondary education.

Parents, for more reading information, please click here.

To view our Reading and Phonics policy, please click here.

Click on the below to view how our Reading Curriculum is planned and sequenced:

CTK Reading skills progression

Reading Long Term Plan

Example Medium Term Plan

Spelling

Please view our long term plan for spelling here.