English

Oracy

Please click here to view our Introduction for Parents.

Reading

At St Werburgh’s we recognise that Reading is a central part to children’s future successes. Reading for pleasure has been widely shown to improve children’s future academic outcomes and their ongoing well being so we aim to foster a love of books and reading throughout the school.
In Reception and Key Stage 1, children use the Reading Recovery levelled scheme and are heard read one to one with a school adult weekly. Children at the beginning of their reading journey also read phonetically decodable books in line with their phonics knowledge.
In Key Stage 2, children make the transition from Reading Recovery levels to Accelerated Reader during their time in Year 3. Children have a 20 minute independent reading session and are heard read by their teacher at least once a fortnight. Appropriate levelled books are taken home and families are encouraged to read with their child daily and record this in Reading Records. All classes have a daily story time which may incorporate books written by their author of the term, quality texts about the child’s independent reading level or a class novel.
From Year 2, children receive a whole class reading lesson where comprehension skills are taught in depth. These lessons are based around quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry texts and are outlined in the overview below. Children in Reception and Year 1 are taught these skills through one to one reading, class story times and class discussion.

Please click here to view our Reading overview

Writing

Our Writing curriculum is designed to teach children the skills and knowledge from the National Curriculum through high quality and engaging books. These books often relate to the wider Enquiry taught that term, Children are taught through a balance of immersion lessons, specific skills teaching, shared planning and writing and finally an opportunity to apply their learned skills in a range of contexts. The curriculum is mapped out on the Writing overview and ensures children learn through a range of genres and writing opportunities.

Please click here to view our Writing overview

Phonics

At St Werburghs we teach phonics daily to support early reading and writing skills. The sessions are fast paced and fun, and the children really enjoy them. We use a range of ideas from different schemes to develop the skills needed; from sound discrimination and letter formation, to recognising phonemes and using these to read and write.

We introduce the sounds a set a week and as soon as each set of letters is introduced, children are encouraged to use their knowledge of the letter sounds to blend and sound out words (reading). They will also start learning to segment words (writing).

The children apply the skills they are learning to their reading and writing, both within phonics sessions and independently in their learning throughout our day. We follow a consistent structure of revisit, teach, practise and apply throughout EYFS and KS1 so children build on their knowledge effectively and know what to expect in their phonics learning.