English
Writing Hall of Fame
As parents, carers and the community are not able to come in and see the wonderful writing pupils have produced at the moment we are displaying it here for you to view. Well done to those pupils who have had their writing chosen to be placed up on the 'Writing Hall of Fame' display board. We are extremely proud of you and your writing!
Across the National Curriculum areas for English, we at Ferring C of E School aim:
- to foster an interest, understanding and enjoyment of literature and language in the children through the interaction of speaking, listening, reading and writing and to develop these to the best of each child’s ability;
- to enable the children to express their feelings, opinions and thoughts clearly, coherently and fluently in spoken and written language;
- to develop critical awareness of both the spoken and written word;
- to encourage the creative use of language;
- to nurture parental involvement in all aspects of the children’s language, in and out of school;
English skills are essential to our ability to understand, interpret and communicate about the world and with each other. Writing is the ability to effectively communicate ideas, information and opinions through the printed word, in a wide range of contexts and to a variety of audiences. It offers the opportunity to store information for later retrieval, to interact with others and to reflect and to express ideas creatively. Skilled writers understand the characteristics of writing’s many forms, and are able to adapt their style to suit a wide range of purposes and audiences. We aim to equip children with the skills and knowledge necessary to do this, and to enable them to become lifelong writers – both out of necessity in life and for pleasure.
Reading Aims:
- To develop an enjoyment of reading;
- To ensure that reading is a skill celebrated from Reception to Year 6;
- To ensure reading is an integral part of learning across all curriculum areas;
- To give children opportunities to make choices about what they read and to share these with others;
- To ensure that all children are taught to read at the appropriate level and that reading with a teacher is an opportunity to extend their learning;
- To ensure pupils learn to read and develop into independent readers, reading with meaning for pleasure and information;
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To support pupils in developing a wide range of strategies for reading;
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To develop the ability to be able to adjust to different styles of presentation and to read for different purposes;
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To develop the understanding and skills necessary to find information relevant to an
enquiry or topic being studied.
Writing Aims:
Our aims for the children of Ferring C of E School are to:
- Write with confidence, accuracy, clarity and imagination.
- Understand how, and be able to, write successfully in a range of genres in fiction and poetry.
- Understand how, and be able to, write successfully in a range of genres in non-fiction.
- Be able to effectively plan, draft, revise and edit, and publish their own writing.
- Learn how to critically and constructively appraise their own and others’ writing.
- Develop their spoken and written language and vocabulary in order to produce creative and well crafted texts which are appropriate to audience and purpose.
- Develop skills and confidence with the use of grammar, punctuation and Standard English conventions and apply these skills to their writing.
- Develop skills and confidence with the use of letter sounds and spelling conventions and apply these skills to their writing.
- Develop a fluent, joined and legible handwriting style.
- Be able to successfully apply the skills learned in writing lessons to all other areas of the curriculum.
Teaching and Learning (Reading):
We at Ferring C of E Primary School aim to ensure that all pupils:-
- follow the National Curriculum programme of study for reading;
- experience reading in a dynamic relationship with speaking, listening and writing;
- have a good knowledge of phonics and phonic decoding strategies following a high quality programme of systematic phonics teaching at KS1, and KS2 where appropriate;
- have access to a wide range of reading resources, including IT based materials;
- are given opportunities to read a wide range of different genres;
- are given opportunities to read independently and with others;
- are given opportunities to consider the quality and depth of what they have read;
- are encouraged to respond to plot, characters, ideas, purpose of author, vocabulary and organisation of language in literature;
- are taught to evaluate the texts they read;
- are involved in the choice of reading materials;
- are given opportunities to read for a variety of purposes;
- are given opportunities to discuss their reading with adults or peers at all stages of the process;
- are given opportunities to hear a range of texts read aloud;
- are given opportunities to consider the characteristics and features of different kinds of texts;
- are given opportunities to develop their reading through other areas of the curriculum;
- are enabled to develop a range of strategies for tackling new words;
- are given opportunities to read about subjects which are purposeful, interesting and relevant to them;
- are given opportunities to develop and use the skills necessary for researching an enquiry or project;
- develop their understanding of Standard English through the knowledge about language gained from their reading.
Little Wandle Phonics:
Little Wandle Phonics is a fun and engaging new phonics program being used at Ferring.
Phonics sessions take place daily with four shorter (20min) sessions and then one longer session during the week. Sessions are taught through a whole class approach with the teacher leading. Teaching assistants will also lead phonics sessions for children who need additional support and these sessions are either in the afternoon (Key Stage 1) or during intervention lessons (Key Stage 2).
Stage 1: Reception
Taught over 30 weeks, the children learn 46 graphemes and 17 tricky words (words that cannot easily be decoded).
Stage 2: Year 1
Taught over 30 weeks, the children learn an additional 27 graphemes and 45 tricky words. In June, children in Year 1 take the phonics check used to assess their phonic knowledge within reading. This takes place 1:1 with a teacher and children are asked to decode 20 real words and 20 alien words using their phonics knowledge.
Stage 3: Year 2
Taught over 20 weeks, the children learn an additional 27 graphemes and 30 tricky words. These graphemes are all alternative spellings for different sounds (/ee/, /s/, /j/, /n/,/l/, /or/, /sh/, /r/, /f/, /w/, /u/, /o/, /er/). This follows the spelling patterns being taught throughout year 2. Stage 3 also teaches contracted words (can't, won't etc.), homophones (night/knight, see/sea etc.) and suffixes (ment, ly, ness, less etc.) as part of the 20 week phonics program
Children in Year 1 and 2 are encouraged to use their phonics when reading to decode unfamiliar words and when writing to help them spell. They have Song of Sounds phoneme mats which they can use to help them in class.
We are really excited to be following the Song of Sounds program this year and we will be rolling out training to parents as soon as we are able to!
Guided Reading:
Guided Reading is the method used to teach individual children to become fluent in reading and comprehension skills of inference and deduction once the children have progressed off the phonics programme.
Children are taught according to their individual needs in small groups set according to ability. During guided sessions, pupils will get the opportunity to read and analyse a range of genres through teacher and pupil choice.
For all readers, the focus of a guided reading session should be firmly upon challenging questioning plus opportunities for reflective and independent responses to the text.
Daily Guided Reading occurs outside of the main English lessons taught throughout the week and they last for 25 - 30 minutes.
Reading Journals are used by pupils from Year 3 - 6 in recording their follow-up tasks to further develop their reading comprehension skills.
Individual reading:
To facilitate regular opportunities to hear less fluent readers read, Teachers/TAs will target highlighted children and plan in extra opportunities for them to develop their reading skills. This is an opportunity to give "next steps" feedback and give support to children who are missing particular skills such as segmenting, blending, and using expression and intonation.
Reading across the curriculum:
Reading is an integral and highly valued skill across the curriculum and teachers provide opportunities for children to engage in texts for different purposes. Connections should be made between reading skills learnt as part of guided reading session, English lesson and other areas of the curriculum.
Book Bands:
All pupils are placed in a colour band according to their reading ability. In the library and classrooms there are a range of texts which the pupils can choose from. Pupils are encouraged to change their home-reading book weekly and to read at home regularly to develop their reading further.
Independent reading and choice:
Pupils are given daily opportunities to interact with texts of their own choosing. Classrooms and the school library have a balanced range of genres which the pupils can choose from. Each class has a library slot where they can go to the library and choose a book to read for the week. This happens throughout the year. Pupils are also encouraged to silently read during registration times and to regularly change their home reading book, choosing from the range of texts in their book band colours from the library.
Story times:
Daily story times in Reception and KS1 is an opportunity for pupils to share and enjoy quality texts with the teacher modelling good reading skills. In KS2, teachers choose exciting and engaging class texts and novels to read with and to their pupils which fit in with their term's topic.
Paired reading:
Throughout the school, year groups are paired up so pupils from different year groups get the opportunity to read to each other, read together and listen to others read and share in their love of reading to discuss the texts they have chosen and what they enjoy about them.
Parent readers:
At present, we are very lucky to have members of the community, parents and governors give up their valuable time to come into school to hear our children read and to help their reading develop further.
If you are able to give up some of your time each week to support the development of reading at Ferring C of E Primary School, please let us know. Thank you!
