INTENT: We want our children to leave us as fluent speakers, readers and writers. Children are empowered by a high-quality, structured and creative English curriculum so that they can communicate not just ideas, but also emotions to others. They understand that there are different purposes and audiences and can adapt the way they communicate according to these.
Children develop as passionate readers, where reading is used not just to develop their subject-specific knowledge, but widen their understanding of their own and other cultures and societies, build their emotional intelligence and grow their imagination. Children will experience the shared reading of a broad range of texts and be motivated to read widely both inside and outside of school. They will build a strong understanding that reading is for gaining information across the curriculum and for pleasure.
Teachers will directly teach ambitious vocabulary drawn from the books and texts read, as well as the wider curriculum and the world around them so that children have a wide vocabulary when they enter secondary school and are able to make connections between texts, their lives and the wider world.
IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers share their love of reading within and outside of their classrooms. Children are read a wide range of texts to build knowledge and for pleasure, and are taught to write for a range of purposes and audiences with strong links across the curriculum and to local and global issues and current affairs. Reading is brought to life through experiences and the use of technology which provide children with rich experiences to discuss, make links and share and build upon previous knowledge. A rigorous programme of systematic synthetic phonics provides children with a tool to decode, before building fluency and the ability to comprehend and question independently. As children move through the school, they are taught to retrieve, summarise, infer, predict, discuss meaning and make comparisons and links.
IMPACT: We use a variety of strategies to evaluate the knowledge, skills and understanding that our children gain as they progress from Reception to Year 6:
Children's home school reading books are changed once a week. We use book band colours and our main books are Bug Club Pearson texts. In addition to this parents and children can access 'BUG CLUB' (Pearson) which is our online reading scheme. Teachers will add books either at the request of the parent (please write a note in the reading record) or on a fortnightly basis. Children have access to at least 5 books at a time online. Please continue to record when you hear your child read in their reading record.
Children also have daily Guided Reading and Phonics sessions (Phonics Bug).
It is the expectation of the school that all children read at home for a minimum of 3 times per week and that this is evidenced in their reading record.
KS1 Expected Standard
The following bullet points are the expected standard (end points) for KS1:
Making inferences
Comprehension
Provide simple explanations for:
Language for effect
Children have the opportunity to change their books as often as they like throughout the day during set times in class or lunchtimes.
In addition to this parents and children can access 'BUG CLUB' (Pearson) which is our online reading scheme. Teachers will add books either at the request of the parent (please write a note in the reading record) or on a fortnightly basis. Children have access to at least 5 books at a time online. Please continue to record when you hear your child read in their reading record.
Children also have Guided Reading sessions througout the week in addition to guided phonics/spelling sessions on a regular basis.
It is the expectation of the school that all children read at home for a minimum of 3 times per week and that this is evidenced in their reading record.
KS2 Expected Standard
The following bullet points are the expected standard (end points) for KS2::
Themes and conventions
Making inferences
Comprehension
Language for effect