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Edenbridge Primary School

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English

At Edenbridge Primary School, we are passionate about English! We strive for every child to be a ‘Primary Literate Pupil’ by the time they leave primary school. We aim to develop pupils’ skills within an integrated programme of speaking and listening, reading and writing, and then extended through all areas of the curriculum.We prepare the children to become confident, competent writers by equipping them with the spelling, punctuation and grammar skills they need. We aim to develop a love of reading and use rich and exciting texts to to inspire and engage the children. Through structured Phonics lessons, Guided Reading and daily English lesson we aim to give all children the skills they need to decode and understand a range of reading material.

Phonics

Research shows that teaching Phonics in a structured and systematic way is the most effective way of teaching young children to read. Almost all children who receive good teaching of Phonics will learn the skills they need to decifer new and unfamiliar words. At Edenbridge Primary School Phonics is taught on a daily basis and follows the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme. Children are taught the skills for segmenting and blending words and are introduced to new phonemes as part of a systematic synthetic approach. The teaching of Phonics continues in Years 1 and 2 as children are introduced to alternative graphemes, lesser known sounds and begin to learn some of the more complicated spelling rules.

At the end of Year 1 children are required to sit the Phonics Screening Check to assess their ability to segment and blend words. Children are presented with 40 words – a mixture of real and pseudo words and they are expected to apply their Phonics knowledge to read the words. If children are unsuccessful in Year 1 they have the opportunity to retake the test in Year 2. Intervention groups are set up for those children struggling with their Phonics learning and this additional support will continue in Key Stage 2 if necessary.

Support for Parents

Below you will find some important documents that will help you and your child continue to practice their phonics at home. There is also a link to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds website which has further guides for parents.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

A Guide to Phonics.mp4

Pronunciation_guide_Autumn_1.pdf

Pronunciation_guide_Autumn_2-1.pdf

LS-Grapheme-info-sheet-Phase-3-Spring-1.pdf

Reading

At Edenbridge Primary School, we believe that reading is integral to children’s lives. It provides the gateway to future learning and enables children to reach people, places and times they would otherwise never encounter. A good reader is well equipped to fully access the curriculum and therefore reach their full potential. At Edenbridge Primary School, we aim to ensure that reading is integral to every lesson. We believe that reading is essential to all areas of the curriculum and as such should be encouraged and promoted at every opportunity. Children should be taught to read proficiently for their age and to have developed a love of books. Our aim is to inspire children to read a wide range of books from a wide range of authors that reflect the culture and diversity of the children in our school community. We aim to foster children who read for pleasure and purpose.

We want our Reading teaching to reflect our curriculum and our learners so each year group has a carefully curated booklist that matches their topic and exposes the children to authors, genres and vocabulary that are exciting and challenging.

Our youngest readers learn to decode efficiently through the Little Wandle Phonic scheme and this is the primary focus until children are reading independently.

Each week a key skill such as; decoding; retrieving; summarising; predicting; identifying meaning and impact of words and phrases; inferring or making comparisons is practised. Teachers use formative assessment to identify skills to be reviewed and areas of misconceptions to be addressed and allow children to reflect on their own learning by correcting errors. Our pitch and progression document also gives guidelines on which skill to prioritise each term. The lessons are differentiated to ensure that the children are scaffolded appropriately to access the text and to show what they have understood.

EYFS Reading List.pdf

Year 1 Reading List.pdf

Year 2 Reading List.pdf

Year 3 Reading List.pdf

Year 4 Reading List.pdf

Year 5 Reading List.pdf

Year 6 Reading List.pdf

Writing

Our English curriculum is based around key quality texts. The books are chosen to deliver writing stimuli that inspire and engage children. The books are selected to reflect a rich vocabulary and high-quality writing for the children to emulate.

We have progression documents to ensure that we cover a wide range of writing purposes within each year group and across the school. They are designed to enable our children to write clearly, accurately and coherently, showing children how they can adapt their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. Our pitch and progression document maps out the key writing skills to be taught. It provides guidance for teachers about the elements to include in modelled writing and indicates the intended purpose for the writing, while allowing the opportunity to alter the audience for the needs and abilities of the children.

Writing lessons are closely linked to our quality text ensuring the children have good writing models and clear subject knowledge to base their writing upon. They build to a sustained piece of extended writing through a journey of immersion in the text, short burst writing to develop key skills and a final sustained piece of writing. Editing and proof reading is modelled and promoted throughout the writing process and can be seen in the regular green pen marking the children complete in response to teacher or peer advice.