English
ENGLISH
In our schools we are powered by stories! Many of our topics are based around key fiction books or particular authors such as Lauren Child, Roald Dahl, Julia Donaldson. Our teachers really know and love books and writing. We have recently adopted ‘Helicopter Stories’ in Reception, scribing and telling stories, we have had a Creative Writing Club, had poems and stories published and are planning our own magazine. Drama plays an important part in the writing process and we believe you need to ‘speak it’ before you write it. The children often write parts of our theatre shows.
We have recently invested thousands of pounds in new books on both sites and a fantastic funky library at Rode. Our libraries stock the latest fiction titles and we challenge the children to read the ‘100 best books’ list before they leave in Year Four.
In the classrooms, children in Reception, Year One and Two take part in a daily Phonics Session. This becomes a spelling, punctuation and grammar focus in Years Three and Four. We use two main reading schemes across the schools Phonics Bug and Big Cat Phonics. We follow the Letters and Sounds Phonics teaching programme and from June 2022 will be following the ‘Unlocking Letters and Sounds’ government validated phonics scheme. Our philosophy is to take the best bits wherever we find them and put them together with our unique school style. Our Reading results are very good across our Federation.
We have follow the PenPals Handwriting Scheme which introduces joined handwriting in Year 2. We use non-cursive script in Reception and Year One, focusing on correct letter formation and size. Our SEN team support children where needed with Talk Boost, Time to Talk, Write from the Start and ILI intervention programmes.
Read about our approach to English and Literacy: RNSF English Statement
Each year group has a Literacy Progression Plan to match our two-year topic rolling programme, which shows the detail of our teaching of reading, writing and oracy.
Reception Gruffalo Literacy progression Year A and B
Year One Elmer Literacy Progression Year A
Year One Elmer Literacy Progression Year B