English and Phonics

Our English curriculum intends to:

• Develop early reading through our teaching of systematic synthetic phonics. 
• Achieve fluent readers, by the end of Year 1, with pupils ready to engage in a range of age-appropriate texts, reading for pleasure and purpose from Year 2 to Year 6. Pupils will read fluently and with confidence, in any subject, ready for the next stage of their education. At the end of KS2, pupils should be able to enjoy and confidently read a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books and show curiosity about a widening range of vocabulary. 
• Develop pupils’ life-long love of reading through a reading-rich curriculum and reading-rich environments around the school, using teaching sequences from the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE).
• At all stages, reading attainment is assessed and gaps are identified and addressed quickly and effectively for all pupils. Teachers ensure equal access to learning for all pupils, with high expectations for every pupil and appropriate levels of challenge and support; particularly for the lowest 20% of pupils, SEND pupils and those who have been unable to pass the phonics screener.
• Enable children to access a range of high-quality texts that reflect our local context, our literary history and offer cultural capital and diversity, and reflect upon these in the context of our Values based Education.
• Develop confident writers through writing for an audience and purpose, linked closely to our curriculum texts, as well as offering opportunities for ‘free writing’ to enable our children to see themselves as authors.
• Enable children to develop their handwriting style to become fluent writers, who take pride in the presentation of their work.
• Develop pupils’ grammar knowledge that is purposeful, age-appropriate and lies in context of the writing sequences planned.
• Offer our children a systematic and progressive approach to the teaching and learning of spelling, which enables them to learn new spelling rules and patterns, whilst also equipping them with approaches to apply and embed this knowledge within their writing across the whole curriculum.
• Develop confident speakers through varied and rich opportunities for speaking and listening, through our CLPE teaching sequences, as well as regular opportunities to perform to an audience across the entire EYFS and primary phase.

Phonics and reading

At Loddon Primary School we are passionate about reading. In partnership with you, we strive to develop our children as fluent readers.

Reading at home as well as in school is the most effective and important way in which you can help your child develop a love of reading and a joy in books.

From September 2022, at Loddon Primary School, our chosen accredited programme for the delivery of phonics, high frequency words and to support early reading development in EYFS and KS1 is Little Wandle – Letters and Sounds.

In EYFS and Year 1, your child will be taught phonics daily in a whole class mastery approach. Alongside the teaching of phonics, every child will be provided with daily opportunities to apply their phonic knowledge and skills in reading and spelling. In Year 2, children will progress onto a spelling programme.

More information about Little Wandle, along with some videos to help you support your child, can be found here: Little Wandle information for parents

A FEW DEFINITIONS...

Here are some of the key terms we use in phonics teaching:

Phoneme - a sound as it is said

Grapheme - a sound that is written

Digraph - two letters that make one sound

Trigraph - three letters that make one sound

Split digraph - two letters that make one sound, separated by another letter

Writing

We assess children's writing regularly throughout the year. These documents show you what children are expected to be able to do at the end of each school year.

Early Years Writing Assessment Grid

Years 1 to 6 Writing Assessment Grids

Regular opportunities to practice writing are a key part of children's success. Please take a look at this leaflet from the Writing for Pleasure Centre which will shows you ways you can do this at home.

Writing at Home Guidance Leaflet

Year groups texts used for teaching sequences - Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE)

Online learning opportunities to practice and improve English skills

Spelling Shed

Use this for regular spelling practice. Log in via ITS Learning or directly at www.edshed.com/en-gb/login

Letter-Join 

Use this for regular handwriting practice. Log in via ITS Learning or directly at https://www.letterjoin.co.uk/ 

ANNUAL PARENT WORKSHOPS

We offer annual workshops to introduce how we teach phonics and reading at Loddon using Little Wandle. In these workshops, we share our strategy for developing phonics skills, fluency and comprehension. For Reception parents, these take place in September; for Year 1 parents, these take place in March.

Please refer to Parent Mail communication for more information.