At Sacred Heart, we believe that English and communication are essential life skills. Our aim is to provide an ambitious and innovative English curriculum that empowers children to communicate confidently, creatively and effectively in both spoken and written forms. Through high‑quality teaching, we equip pupils with the knowledge and skills they need to express themselves, think critically and become lifelong learners.

We want every child to develop a genuine love of reading and an appreciation of literature in all its richness. Each English unit is built around a carefully chosen, high‑quality text that inspires curiosity, deepens understanding and provides a strong model for language and writing. Through this approach, children experience a broad range of stories, poems and non‑fiction that broaden their horizons and strengthen their cultural capital.

How We Teach Reading and Writing at Sacred Heart

At Sacred Heart, we believe that strong reading and writing skills are the foundation of success across the curriculum. Our English curriculum is designed to ensure that every child becomes a fluent reader, an expressive writer and a confident communicator.

Reading

Reading is taught systematically and progressively from the moment children join us. In Key Stage 1, pupils are introduced to the different reading domains through a wide range of high‑quality texts. They learn to retrieve information, make inferences, predict, sequence events and explore vocabulary, building the foundations for deeper comprehension in Key Stage 2.

A key focus of our approach is developing automaticity in early reading. Through high‑quality phonics teaching, repeated practice and exposure to decodable texts, pupils learn to recognise words quickly and effortlessly. This frees up cognitive space for comprehension, enabling children to understand, enjoy and discuss what they read with increasing confidence.

Across the school, pupils study rich and diverse literature that broadens vocabulary, deepens understanding and nurtures a genuine love of reading. Whole‑class reading, guided reading and targeted interventions ensure that every child receives the support and challenge they need to become a fluent, confident reader.

Writing

Writing is taught through high‑quality model texts that inspire creativity and provide strong examples of language, structure and style. Pupils learn to plan, draft, edit and publish their writing with increasing independence. Grammar, punctuation and spelling are taught explicitly and applied purposefully within writing units so that children understand how to use these skills effectively.

We place a strong emphasis on vocabulary development and automaticity in transcriptional skills—spelling, handwriting and sentence construction. When pupils can write words and sentences accurately and automatically, they can focus more deeply on composition, creativity and the clarity of their ideas.