Subject Lead: Mrs Nicola Rillie 

 

                                                              Intent, Implementation & Impact Statement 

 

At Weeton St Michaels, our curriculum is designed to develop children’s character, intellect and curiosity.  We have high aspirations for all our children and aim to offer them a broad, challenging and engaging curriculum. It is our aim, that by the time children leave our school they will:

•          Be kind, confident, well-mannered, thoughtful members of society   who embody our Christian values.

•          Be ambitious for their futures.

•          Have a love of learning. 

•          Respect each other regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, culture, gender, disability and wealth.

•          Be courageous advocates for the causes they believe in.

 

Intent

At Weeton, we believe that the teaching of reading is vital to a child’s understanding and appreciation of the world around them; a platform that allows our children to see beyond what they know, share in cultural experiences and develop the vocabulary they need to effectively express themselves. Our reading curriculum strives to foster a lifelong love of reading and covers all of the National Curriculum for Reading.  We encourage the behaviours that they will need to be discerning readers as they read frequently and widely using self-regulation strategies and discuss what they read. This curriculum is delivered through synthetic phonics (Red Rose), a linked approach to shared and guided reading, home reading, reading across the curriculum, regular opportunities for independent reading and hearing quality texts read aloud every day. All of these are essential components as they offer the range of opportunities needed to develop fluent, enthusiastic and critical readers.

It is important that children are motivated to read at home regularly; when their reading opportunities increase, so does their fluency and stamina which in turn increases their enjoyment of reading. Therefore, the link between children’s motivation to read and reading for pleasure is reciprocal. Furthermore, we know that reading pleasure is beneficial not only for not only reading outcomes, but for wider learning enjoyment and mental wellbeing.

 

Therefore, we work hard to foster a love of independent reading and build communities of engaged readers. We understand the significance of parents and carers in supporting their children to develop both word reading and comprehension skills so we endeavour to build a home-school partnership which enables parents and carers to have the confidence to support their children with reading at home. Children through school will take home two books each time, one matched to their reading ability and one for pleasure.

Reading is at the very heart of our curriculum. We are committed to promoting a love for reading and not only giving children opportunities to read in English lessons, but in the wider curriculum too.

Due to lack of local public libraries, we ensure that we have a up to date school library, reading areas across school and reading sheds available for social time.

 

Implementation (Early Reading and Phonics)

Learning to read is one of the most important things a child will ever learn. It underpins everything else, so we believe in putting as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible. We also want our children to develop a real love of reading and to want to read for themselves. This is why we work hard to make sure children develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.

We start teaching phonics in Reception during the first week of term and follow the Red Rose Phonics programme, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. We unsure that all reading books are decodable and matched to the phonics scheme.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Weeton St Michaels, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Alongside this the children are taught the ‘tricky words’ – high frequency words which do not follow the regular phonetic pattern.

Phonics and reading activities are taught in small groups. Discreet phonic sessions take place daily for 20 - 25 minutes and there are also enhanced phonic activities within the indoor and outdoor environment available for the  EYFS children to explore independently throughout the day.

Teachers read their class novel daily, with the children so the children get to know and love all sorts of stories, poetry and information books.  This is in addition to the books that they bring home.  This helps to extend children’s vocabulary and comprehension, as well as supporting their writing. All classrooms have attractive book corners where the children can access a wide range of books, both fiction and non-fiction to help embed their love of books, stories and reading.

EYFS

In Early Years, Reading is taught via the Early Learning Goals linked to the specific areas comprehension and word reading. The majority of learning in this area occurs through adult intervention when the children are in continuous provision. Learning is organised into themes and books are selected to enable a progressive approach to reading.

By the end of Early Years, the children should be able to:

• Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at least 10 digraphs.
• Read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound-blending.
• Read aloud simple sentences and books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge, including some common exception words.
• Demonstrate understanding of what has been read to them by retelling stories and narratives using their own words and recently introduced vocabulary.
• Anticipate – where appropriate – key events in stories.
• Use and understand recently introduced vocabulary during discussions about stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems and during role-play.

 

Impact

Children’s progress in phonics is continually reviewed through daily informal and half termly formal phonic assessments and evidence from their reading and writing. Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

 

Assessment for learning is used:

• daily within class to identify children needing keep-up support
• weekly in the review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

Summative assessment is used:

• every half term to assess progress,
• to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed,
• to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the keep-up support that they need.
• By SLT and scrutinised through the school assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

 

Ongoing assessment for catch-up

Children are assessed continually and through their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment using the Phonics Tracker and interventions implemented as appropriate.

Implementation (Guided Reading)

Key expectation – Each session is 20 minutes.

5 Guided reading sessions will take place.

We will deliver guided reading to a group of pupils 4 x per week. Teacher will lead a group. Teachers plan and resource every group and the sessions that will be delivered. In these sessions,  pupils will learn to infer, question, understand writer’s bias, narrative structure, different forms and genres, morphology and etymology etc.

Each session is structured in a consistent way –every session starts off using the flash cards appropriate for the group.

When listening to reading adults will ‘live mark’ reading strategies by intervening at the point of reading and re-model the error observed in the moment of reading. (Immediate feedback).

 

Working with Parents

We provide reading workshops for all parents (these are also recorded and available via the website).

Reading records are utilised to capture home reading and parent feedback.

We also weave reading into family events in school, for example scholastic book fairs.

 

Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

We ensure that all pupils can access the phonics scheme and learn to read. We adapt planning to support the individual needs of each child using pupil passports to inform adaptation. All pupils falling behind from age related expectation will receive intervention daily in phonics and/or reading. The bottom twenty percent of readers, will receive additional reading opportunities with an adult regularly.

 

More Able Children

We ensure that more able pupils can work independently.  We provide all children with opportunities for deeper learning e.g., via QR codes activities, pupils can continue their learning outside of lesson time. We also enable them to access a comprehensive range of challenging texts.