English Statement

• We put Reading at the heart of curriculum as we believe it is the magic key which unlocks the door to further learning.
• The building blocks of reading depend on phonological awareness which we teach throughout school using our phonics scheme, Read Write inc.
• Children are heard read in class often and we expect children to practice reading at home to develop fluency.
• Children take home book banded books which are carefully matched to their phonic ability. Children also have access to a phonic e-book which is also matched closely to their phonic level. We encourage parents to read a book with their child three times in order to improve their fluency and confidence in reading.
• Although phonics is key to ensuring children become confident readers, we also broaden children’s comprehension skills throughout the School and Nursery and our vocabulary is sequenced by subject leaders through all subjects.
• To encourage a culture of reading and create life-long readers, our pupils are encouraged to read for pleasure and to read widely, as well as be read to.
• Our school library was opened in 2023 and allows children access to a wide selection of fiction and non-fiction books which they can select from to take back to class. We aim to install a library system shortly so children are able to borrow books to take home and share with their families.
• Through our writing lessons, children gain an understanding of genre as well as the fundamental skills involved in writing e.g. punctuation and grammar.
• Talk 4 Write is used throughout the school and nursery to help our children understand story structure, improve their spoken language and give them confidence in writing for sustained periods of time.
• We use strategies from the very start of Nursery to ensure children have the fine and gross motor muscles required for writing and use these to refine their handwriting skills.
• We aim to give writing a purpose as much as possible and often use our writing skills when learning in foundation subjects such as Geography and History.

 Our English offer:

Phonics is taught daily using our SSP (systematic synthetic phonics program) which is called Read Write Inc. Children are introduced to grapheme/phoneme correspondence (the sound that different letters make), red words (words which cannot be phonetically decoded) and green words (phonetically decidable words which they will learn to read on sight). Children who we have identified as being in the bottom 20% then benefit from daily interventions to enable them to keep up with their peers. We also run interventions for children who are not in the bottom 20%, but also need support to remain in line with pace of the scheme. Assessments are carried out every half term to ensure children are reading the correct level of book and to identify any child who requires extra support.

Our English curriculum is sequenced from Nursery to Year 2. Each year, children start by consolidating learning from the previous year and then introducing new concepts. The children then practise and develop these concepts so that they are fully embedded by the end of the year. That means the children will be able to apply the skills they have learnt in different contexts.

We have a Reading Spine which includes both classic texts and more modern ones and celebrates a diverse range of authors and poets. Teachers use these texts as a basis for their writing and reading lessons.

Children listen to Read Aloud books daily. As children develop their attention and comprehension skills, we introduce short chapter books to stretch their vocabulary and inspire them to challenge themselves when reading for pleasure. These are also great opportunities to introduce children to new authors.

We have a fantastic army of reading volunteers who read with children throughout the school. All these volunteers have basic training in phonics and are an invaluable asset to our school! If you are interested in becoming a Volunteer Reader, please contact the school office. We also have close links with Herne Bay Library which every class visits throughout the year to explore their wonderful range of books.

Useful links to websites that support reading:

Oxford Owl – https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/

Read Write Inc https://www.ruthmiskin.com/parentsandcarers/