English (Reading and Phonics)
Why are reading and phonics so important?
At St. Bede’s Catholic Primary School we believe that being able to read and write are the vital skills which underpin every area of our curriculum.
Not only do we believe in the importance of developing the basic skills of reading and writing, we believe in promoting a real love of literature and the confidence to enjoy a variety of texts.
We believe that a strong and consistent approach to the teaching of phonics is vital for children to begin to access the rest of the curriculum.
It is our intent to ensure that every child becomes a confident reader by the time they leave St. Bede’s RC Primary school by promoting and instilling a love of reading high-quality literature.
What does reading and phonics look like in our school?
Each classroom is filled with visual stimulus to help children to read and write. Children have access to high quality, age-appropriate texts with each year group creating their own class reading spine.
Children are read with on at least a weekly basis with a teacher or teaching assistant in class. These sessions focus on developing decoding skills in the Early Years and Key Stage One and comprehension skills in Key Stage Two.
Texts are shared with the whole class and children enjoy a whole class reading session at 3pm with a variety of interesting class novels.
Phonics teaching begins in Nursery and carries on through Key Stage One and, where appropriate, Key Stage Two. We use a systematic, synthetic phonics approach, Soundswrite to ensure our children leave Reception and Key Stage One as confident, fluent readers.
By the end of each phase….
By the end of Reception most children are able to read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.
By the end of Year 2, most children are able to continue to apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words until automatic decoding has become embedded and to continue to develop a pleasure and motivation in reading.
By the end of Year 6 most children are able to maintain positive attitudes to reading and an understanding of what they read and leave our school as confident, fluent readers who enjoy a range of quality texts.
English (Writing)
Why is writing so important?
At St. Bede’s Catholic Primary School we believe that being able to read and write are vital skills which underpin every area of our curriculum.
Not only do we believe in the importance of developing the basic skills of reading and writing, we believe in promoting a real love of literature and the confidence to write creatively.
It is our intent to ensure that every child is a confident writer who follows an English curriculum which develops the acquisition of knowledge and skills in line with the National Curriculum expectations and provides opportunities for children to develop their cultural capital of the world.
What does writing look like in our school?
Within school, we follow The Write Stuff scheme of learning alongside lessons in spelling punctuation and grammar, to ensure that these technical elements of writing develop as the children progress through the school.
The Write Stuff inspires teachers to plan stimulating and engaging experiences based on quality, interesting texts. The units begin with exciting experience days which involve reading outdoors, exploring metal objects (The Iron Man) or tasting food from other cultures. These experiences are designed to give a ‘real life’ context to the children’s writing and to bring the curriculum to life.
Children are encouraged to make links between reading and writing, using techniques and skills employed by the authors of texts they have read. They also make links between writing and speaking, working hard to understand the differences in the language used for both.
By the end of each phase….
By the end of Reception most children can spell phonetically regular words of more than one syllable as well as many irregular but high-frequency words. They use key features of narrative in their own writing.
By the end of Year 2, most children are able to develop positive attitudes and stamina for writing a number of genres including poetry, narratives and real events.
By the end of Year 6 most children are able to plan, draft, write, evaluate and edit a variety of different genres and understand the number of different purposes for writing.
ENGLISH WRITING Long Term Planning Overview -2
