English

Reading

At Symondsbury we aim to develop a love of reading as well as enabling children to become confident, enthusiastic readers themselves.  Across the school, children in all classes enjoy daily storytimes, being read to by an adult.  We choose high quality texts that represent a diverse range of characters, introduce us to inspirational people and raise awareness of important topics and issues such as the environment.  The opportunity for 'Booktalk' around our stories helps children to develop their understanding and promotes discussion.

Class 1 & 2 children take home reading books linked to their phonic ability (See Phonics information below) to develop their decoding skills and fluency.  Alongside this they choose a book to take home and share with an adult that is solely about enjoying books and reading for pleasure.

Key Stage 2 children will take home a book from our Accelerated Reader selection which is linked to their reading ability, some children may still be using books from the phonics scheme.  Accelerated Reader is designed to support children's comprehension by providing a quiz at the end of a book.

Key Stage 2 children also take part in Whole Class and Group Guided Reading sessions to develop fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary as well as developing the skills of reasoning and making predictions.  Literacy Tree texts are specifically chosen to expose children to a range of genres, ideas and develop their love of reading.

Classes have a class book which is read to them to develop their love of books and exposure to a range of texts.

Please see our 'Symondsbury Reads' page to see all the things we do at Symondsbury that develop our Reading for Pleasure culture and create a love of reading for all our children.

We also have a 'Recommendations' page where we suggest some fantastic titles that families may enjoy.

Phonics - Little Wandle

Our youngest children begin their journey towards reading by taking part in the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics scheme.  Children are explicitly taught the phonemes and the skill of blending which enables them to begin reading.  They then read books matched to their phonic ability.  

After completing our Little Wandle phonics programme, children move onto the Accelerated Reader Scheme which ensures that comprehension skills are developed alongside the skills of word reading.  They take a quiz after finishing their book (which is matched to their learning needs) to further develop their understanding of the text.  They move up levels when the class teams feel that they are ready, when they have shown good understanding of the texts that they are reading.

For Parent Information about Little Wandle please click here. 

To see the overview of progression, please click here.

Writing

At Symondsbury we want children to become confident, creative writers able to write in a range of styles and for a range of audiences.

We understand how important it is for young children to be physically ready to write and there is much emphasis on this in Reception as well as giving the children many opportunities to make meaningful marks in their play.  The children are supported in small groups to write for a variety of purposes, linked to our stories and our experiences.  As appropriate, in Reception, children begin to use the Literacy Tree approach to develop their writing skills.

Literacy Tree

Through the use of Literacy Tree, children are taught to write through a text based approach.

Texts are carefully selected to inspire children, grow ideas and expand their minds.  An exciting 'hook' will engage children with their new book.  Throughout the sequence, activities will develop vocabulary, teach spelling, punctuation and grammar rules.  Children will move towards creating a piece of writing for a clear purpose and audience.

More Information

To find out more about English in the National Curriculum click here.

Our English Development Plan

English Policy - being updated, check back soon