Simonstone St Peter's Church Of England Primary School

English AT SIMONSTONE ST. PETERS

Subject Leadership

Mrs Victoria Greenwood- (English, Phonics and Early Reading lead)

Miss L Fitzpatrick (English Lead)

Mr J Howarth (Link governor)

Intent

At Simonstone we aim to provide our children with a quality curriculum that develops a love of reading, writing and dicussion.

The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

read easily, fluently and with good understanding
develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in deba

(National curriculum in England: English programs of study KS1 and KS2)

implementation

Reading

At Simonstone we encourage reading as much as possible. We want our pupils to be fluent and confident readers and to instil in them a love of reading for pleasure. We use a range of fully decodable Oxford Reading Scheme, Reading Stars and Phonics Bug books for home readers and guided readers in Key Stage 1. In Key Stage 2 children read from a variety of Oxford Owl schemes including Treetops and Project X. Children access a range of texts matched to their reading ability during guided reading sessions, which occur daily in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

All children take a reading books home and home reading is encouraged daily. In KS1 the reading books match the Letters and Sounds phase that pupils are working on. In lower KS2 reading books match the colour bands being read in guided reading sessions. Pupils also enjoy visiting their class and school library to choose their own 'reading for pleasure' book. We have four dedicated Pupil Librarians who manage the library who work towards promote a love of reading.

one- to- one Reading at home

KS1 parental information on how to support your child at home with their Reading.

A useful video clip showing how to support your child when reading at home.

Reading and Phonics

At Simonstone, high quality phonics is paramount for teaching children early reading. We teach direct, focused phonics daily in the EYFS and KS1. We follow the 'Red Rose Letters and Sounds' systematic, synthetic phonics planning program (Lancashire professional development service), using the letters and sounds approach.

Phonics is taught daily across Key Stage One. In year two many of our children are taught from the No Nonsense Spelling scheme. This incorporates the Phonics they have learnt alongside Grammar and Spelling patterns.

What is Phonics?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read quickly and skilfully. They are taught how to:

Recognise the sounds that individual letters make
Identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make-such as 'sh' or 'oo'
Blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word

Children can then use this knowledge to 'decode' new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read.

The children are taught to read words by blending, which means pushing all the sounds together to make a word. The children are taught to spell words by segmenting, which means sounding out words and writing down the sounds they can hear.

By the end of Reception children are expected to be secure in Phase 4. By the end of Year One children are expected to be secure in Phase 5. When finishing Key Stage One, most children should be secure in National Curriculum Year 2 Spelling expectations.