Little Horsted Church of England Primary School

At Little Horsted Church of England Primary School, we aim to provide a language rich learning environment, which encourages and enables children to become fully literate, whilst gaining satisfaction and enjoyment from spoken and written language. Through effective planning, teaching and assessment we provide all our pupils with flexible opportunities for hearing, seeing, creating and responding to print at levels appropriate to their individual development, whilst fulfilling the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage and the National Curriculum. The English teaching we provide allows our children to fulfil their potential while giving them the skills to understand and use language in all its aspects. We aim to include and engage our pupils in high quality learning experiences using exciting diverse, rich texts which will foster passions for life long reading and enable them to embrace literature in its many forms; while also providing them with the confidence and competence to communicate effectively in both speech and writing.  

“The overarching aim for English in the national curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.” – National Curriculum 2014 

Reading

At Little Horsted we want to encourage a love of reading and books. We teach children a variety of reading strategies including phonics, whole-word recognition and reading for meaning This year we are introducing Read, write Inc to support the teaching of phonics.

Please click below for parent information and ideas on their website. We will be offering parent workshops to support the introduction of this new scheme. Parent guide to Read Write Inc. Phonics - Oxford Owl

Foundation Stage and Key Stage One 

Our DFE-validated, complete systematic Phonics scheme (Read, Write Inc) is delivered daily to all children Reception to Y2.  This daily quality-first Phonics teaching follows a consistent teaching sequence, which is based upon the review, teach, practice, apply and review approach. This is supplemented with a variety of resources to ensure children’s phonic attainment allows them to become fluent readers as they progress through Early Years and Key Stage 1.

To enable our children to 'keep up' rather than 'catch up', Phonics interventions are delivered to targeted children. Formal and informal assessments are regularly carried out to monitor progress, celebrate successes and identify areas to address. Where relevant in Key Stage 2, Phonics interventions take place following the same approach. 

In Reception, Key Stage 1 and where appropriate Key Stage 2, reading books are sent home regularly, these are grouped to follow the recommend teaching sequence meaning that children are regularly practising the phonics they are learning in school at home and are at the level most appropriate to each child to secure fluency and confidence in our early readers.

Key Stage 2

 In KS2 we provide daily sessions with a specific focus on reading,  where children are appropriately ability grouped and work in either teacher-led groups or independently. The children develop key skills of decoding, comprehension, prediction and summarising. Structured systems are in place for children who need long- or short- term support.

Our aim is always to encourage independent reading, enjoyment and personal choice. We want our children to develop into confident, fluent and independent readers, who enjoy a wide range of texts and genres.

Further information can be found in the national curriculum link and on the class pages.