Our Curriculum

Our first work which takes place in the teaching of reading is the teaching of Phonics. Our approach to phonics is to teach Systematic Synthetic Phonics (as required by the Department of Education) through the Letters and Sounds scheme. We teach phonics with the expectation that our pupils will be fluent readers having secured word recognition skills by the end of Key Stage 1 (Year 2).

This begins in Nursery with the teaching of Phase One phonics which centres around children being able to recognise sounds that they can hear which is a preparation for moving onto learning the relationship between letters and sounds.

In Reception the children will move onto Phase 2 during which children are taught different sounds each week. We then expect children to move in Key Stage 1 through the Phonic phases so that they will be able to move onto the Support for Spelling scheme at the end of Year 2 and throughout Key Stage 2. 

The children in Year 1 will be expected to undertake the phonics screening check which is a short, light-touch assessment to confirm whether individual pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. We are confident in our teaching of phonics and will not put our children under pressure when they are preparing for the check. We will use the check to identify any children who will require further support to improve their reading skills.

It will identify the children who need extra help so they are given support by their school to improve their reading skills. They will then be able to retake the check so that schools can track pupils until they are able to decode.

In Foundation Stage and Key Stage One we have invested in a range of books from the Rigby Star , Floppy's Phonics and Oxford Reading Tree schemes. These books will be the main ones which will come home for you to read with your children and have notes to help you with this.

The Oxford Reading Tree continues into Lower Key Stage 2 children for those who still require that structure.

We have a growing non fiction library which is overseen by a member of staff and Year 6 librarians. This is used to supplement books used for teaching curriculum subjects as well as firing up the children’s interest in reading.

The school has a strong and ongoing relationship with Steve Skidmore, a wonderful author from Leicestershire, who has worked with us for two years. Steve works with the children both on reading and developing their writing. He performs to the children and has also started the Steve Skidmore Reading Awards which celebrate those children who have shown a love of reading across the school.

The school has developed a cadre of volunteers who come into school to hear readers from Reception up to Year 6. This is a vital group of people who help us so much and ensure that all of our children are being heard read on a regular basis. We could not achieve the standards in reading we have in the school without this help.

The school uses a range of books and schemes for Guided Reading, which is our main method of teaching reading, including Connectors and Read, Respond and Engage. These are made up of a series of highly engaging and interesting books which we now fire up our children's imaginations and love of reading.

Reading at home remains a central part of our approach to the teaching of reading. We have a wide reading stock and share this with the children so that they can take books home. We also encourage children to use the local library and to borrow books from there. This is promoted by a weekly visit from groups of children over the year and working with the manager of Long Sutton Library who comes into school to work with children.