English
In line with our mission statement, we aim to instil a lifelong love of literacy in all of our children and ensure that they give their best, achieving success in this subject. From the moment children join our school, they will engage with literacy teaching that has been structured around the current National Curriculum and around the Early Learning Goals in Foundation Stage.
Our pupils begin to develop their reading and writing skills in our Foundation Stage classes. Soon after they start in Foundation 2, the children begin daily phonics sessions, in line with Little Wandle. As they develop their phonic knowledge they are given ample opportunities, both during adult-led activities and within continuous provision, to practise and consolidate their skills. Assessments completed at the end of each phonic phase in F2 are then passed on to KS1 staff so that the children’s phonics journeys can continue.
We have worked hard to use a wide range of exciting and engaging materials to support and enthuse children in their learning. One of our aim is to foster a love of reading across the school, not only to improve comprehension skills but to also celebrate reading for pleasure. Every class in our school dedicates time to read for pleasure which we believe is important to develop a love of reading and to also improve their skills in other areas of the literacy curriculum From YR2 through YR6, pupils will enrol on the Accelerated Reading program which will foster a love of reading and expose children to a wide range of books and authors. All children in our school have access to the school library, which has a wide range of quality texts for all ages and abilities, as well as scheduled visits to the local library on the school mini bus. In New Brighton Primary School, all children are provided with purposeful writing opportunities which link to our carefully selected book spine.
Our approach to writing involves immersing children in a rich variety of texts which they explore before beginning their own writing. Children are provided with exciting writing opportunities across the curriculum which deepens their understanding of poetry, fiction and non-fiction genres. When pupils are writing independently, teachers set high expectations to ensure children reach their full potential.
We follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme Pathways to Read. Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for reading. Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the reading activities provided.
We deliver one whole class shared reading lesson per week from years 2-6 with bespoke grouped reading for every pupil at least once a week as well as individual reading. For pupils still needing support with phonics from years 2-6, we provide an individual reading programme that has phonically decodable texts at the heart of it. In our shared and grouped reads, there is a clear teaching focus with the opportunity to master key reading skills in each session. There are follow on reading tasks to enable pupils to evidence the skills they have mastered independently.
Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Read approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.
You will find the end of year expectations for reading for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.
We also use Pathways to Write to drive our writing curriculum. This aligns with Pathways to Read ensuring meaningful links for our pupils with texts and topics that are used across Literacy, Humanities and Science.
Spelling rules are taught explicitly and the children are tested weekly to ensure they meet the spelling expectations for their age. We also believe that children should be exposed to a wide range of ambitious vocabulary which they are encouraged to explore and include in their own writing.
We believe that every child will leave New Brighton Primary equipped with the necessary skills in reading and writing in order to access the range of opportunities that they will be presented with as they make the transition to secondary education.
