English

Welcome to the English subject page. If you would like to know more or have any questions please speak to Miss Rawle (Reception and KS1) or Mrs Stone (KS2). 

Here at St Thomas' we believe that reading feeds the imagination- it offers new and exciting ways of making sense of our lives, learning new things and seeing the world around us. If we can teach a child to read, and keep them reading then opportunities are endless. 

      "Children are made readers

       in the laps of their parents." (Emily Buchwald)  

At St Thomas' reading is huge and in a recent sponsored read we raised over £3000 to spend on new books! The top raisers were treated to afternoon tea with Mrs Baxter for doing so well :) 

We want the children to become confident, passionate and energised about reading. We create a reading culture that is exciting around school and model positive reading behaviours. Through our reading displays, working walls, classroom reading corners and our fabulous library the children are surrounded in high quality literature which enthuses and motivates them to pick up high quality books. 

The children love taking recommendations from our Netflix inspired Bookflix display! 

The children also love to stop and see where reading has taken our staff, governors and pupils in their spare time! If you look closely you can see many of our Teachers reading in very unusual places! 

English lessons using 'the power of reading' 

https://clpe.org.uk/powerofreading

At St. Thomas' Catholic Primary, we have chosen to introduce the Power of Reading from Reception through to Year 6 as part of our commitment to ensure all our children have the opportunity to engage with a rich range of quality texts so that they develop into engaged and informed readers and writers, who understand the relationship between reading and writing.

The Power of Reading is about teaching reading and writing through the use of high quality books and creative teaching approaches. Children are immersed into the text through music, art, drama, discussion and role-play. Other approaches include responding to illustrations, ‘Book Talk’, story mapping and book making. Children take ownership of the text and engage with it deeply. It also enables children to deepen their understanding of texts and provides a meaningful context for writing.

Reading aloud is also a key part of the Power of Reading. The strategy enables all children to access the quality texts. Reading aloud also enables the teacher to model expressive and fluent reading to the children.