ENGLISH Bramley St. Peter’s
At Bramley St. Peter’s we want our children to become enthusiastic and engaged readers, and to develop a life-long love of books. We introduce the children to a range of good quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry books through our whole-class, core text approach to teaching reading, and during their weekly reading sessions.
In the early stages of reading, we teach children to decode words using phonic skills as their main approach, alongside which we teach sight vocabulary. Once grasped, the focus for developing reading is understanding and comprehension.
Your child will read with their class teacher once a week either 1:1 or during group reading sessions.
HOME READING AND READING FOR PLEASURE Our dual reading system allows developing readers to bring home a levelled book, and also a book chosen from the designated 100 books list. Independent readers will bring home self-selected books from the library, class reading corners or from the 100 books list. Please spend time reading with and talking to your child about what they read, and help them to use their reading record to log their enjoyment of reading.
PHONICS At Bramley St. Peter’s, phonics is taught daily to all children in Nursery, Reception, Key Stage 1 and children who need may need phonics intervention in Key Stage 2. We use the Letters and Sounds programme to teach children the letters of the alphabet and their matching sounds. We sometimes use songs and actions from Jolly Phonics to help children to remember their sounds.
The children are taught to read words by blending, saying each sound and then pushing all the sounds together to make a word. The children are taught to spell words by segmenting, sounding out words and writing down the sounds they can hear.
In June, all Year 1 children in the country take a test called a Phonics Screening Check. They have to read a total of 40 words, made up of real and nonsense words. Click here for an example. We call the nonsense words ‘alien words’ and the children practise reading them every day.
Alongside phonics, we also teach the children how to spell from Reception onwards. We believe that learning to spell is an important tool for your child to use as an essential part of day-to-day life, as well as in their learning. We teach spelling using an investigative and collaborative approach, focusing on spelling patterns, prefixes and suffixes, knowledge of word origin and root words, in addition to the Spelling Shed scheme. Spellings are monitored continuously and recorded in each child’s spelling journey profile, which is handed up year-by-year.
Click here to see the spelling NC document.
At Bramley St. Peter’s, we use a core text approach over a half term AND sometimes over a term in KS2, to plan quality written outcomes. High-quality literature is used to engage and inspire the pupils, and provide rich models of writing for them to imitate in their own independent writing, through style, voice and language structure.
During their writing journey across the half term, children are encouraged to use their knowledge of texts to write for a variety of audiences and purposes including: explanations, instructions, reports, balanced arguments, stories and poems. They learn to plan, draft, revise, edit and present their work, before evaluating the success of their writing.
At Bramley St. Peter’s, grammar and punctuation is taught during English sessions through contextualised learning linked to the core text. Grammar, language and punctuation skills are taught through analysis of the author’s use of effective vocabulary choices, language structures and writing style, and by using the core text as a model during the writing process. Children are given opportunities to imitate the author’s style, reflect on why the writing is effective, then to practise and develop their own writing style using the skills they have learnt.
HANDWRITING At Bramley St. Peter’s, continuous cursive script is taught from Year 2 onwards through handwriting sessions at least three times per week. In Nursery, Reception and Year 1, pre-cursive script is taught. All handwriting sessions are modelled and taught following the: I do, we do, you do sequence. Attention is drawn to capitalisation and spelling during the session, as well as to the correct starting point, letter formation and join. Pupils who consistently show the Bramley St. Peter’s expectations for handwriting and presentation in all of their books, can earn their pen license enabling them to use a handwriting pen in their English and foundation subject books.
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT All classrooms at Bramley St. Peter’s have an English learning wall which provides scaffolds and models for the children’s writing, including higher order vocabulary, examples of a range of sentence types, and models of the quality written outcome that the children are working towards. A timeline is also used to support children with working memory showing the sequential steps of learning and build up to the final outcome. Learning walls are updated continuously over the half term to support children’s learning.