Reading
OUR INTENT
At Broadmead Lower School our English curriculum is designed to inspire enthusiasm for learning, to ensure achievement and to support pupil well-being and happiness. Our intent is that the English curriculum is a curriculum that is ambitious for all pupils; that is coherently planned and sequenced; that is successfully adapted, designed and developed for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities and that is broad and balanced for all pupils.
We have listened to our children’s voices and we have created a curriculum to encourage our children to become enthusiastic and engaged with all aspects of English. Our cross-curricular approach enables our children to make meaningful links with their learning. We have worked hard to provide our children with rich and varied learning opportunities. We want our children to have a positive attitude towards communication and to be able to independently express their emotions and ideas. Through our English Curriculum, we strive to teach the children how important their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills will be in the real world. By giving this context to their learning, the children understand the value of English to them now, and in their futures. They can indeed ‘Belong – Learn – Succeed’.
Implementation:
At Broadmead Lower we want all of our pupils to be capable readers, writers, spellers and speakers, who can transfer their English skills to other curriculum subjects and who are prepared for the next steps in their education. Our English lessons develop pupils’ spoken language, reading, writing, grammar and vocabulary. English is often taught in a cross-curricular way, linking up with other areas of the curriculum. We teach our pupils to speak clearly, to convey their ideas fluently and confidently and to ask questions; the use of talk for writing activities across the school supports this. We know the value of excellent vocabulary and this is developed and practised across our curriculum constantly. We encourage pupils to express their ideas, discuss their ideas and to develop more sophisticated vocabulary. Our pupils are encouraged to read for pleasure and to read widely through our reading scheme and school library. We use SoundsWrite for our phonics programme. Phonic awareness helps the development of reading by segmenting and blending sounds and the children will be heard reading regularly, both individually and in groups. Our guided reading sessions cover a wide variety of both fiction and non-fiction books and help to advance the children’s comprehension skills. Parents are given reading guidance and clear expectations about reading at home. We develop writing skills so that our children have the stamina and ability to write at the age expected standard. To support children in moving towards independent writing we provide a wide range of activities including the use of imagery, ICT, modelled, shared and guided writing, peer assessment and discussion. We provide varied and exciting opportunities for writing for purpose and we encourage pupils to see themselves as authors and poets. We promote the importance of written work by providing a writing purpose and opportunities for children’s writing to be read aloud and listened to by an audience. Handwriting sessions are regularly incorporated into the English lessons. We have developed a range of extra activities which are used to promote English within the school including Spelling Shed Awards, World Book Day and Presentation Awards.
Reading schemes
The school has a colour banded reading scheme with a range of books within each band. The class teacher makes the decision as to how the children move through this scheme, based on a variety of factors (e.g. ability, confidence, frequency of practice). We very much believe in strong home school links and welcome the support given at home. Your child will have a reading record book which is a communication book for home and school. As well as listening to and supporting your child with the book they bring home, please do continue to read stories to them and encourage them to read all kinds of texts.
Phonics
Phonics is taught daily and is the backbone of reading and writing. All children are taught using a scheme called 'Sounds Write'. Children take part in DfE assessments at the end of Year 1. Once children progress beyond the need for the scheme, they focus purely on spelling patterns.
To read our English Policy please click here.
To read our Scheme of Work for Reading please click here.
To read our Scheme of Work for Writing please click here.
To read our Scheme of Work for Speaking and Listening please click here.
