Furness Primary School

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Curriculum

At Furness we are proud to encourage children to:

Read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding using a range of independent strategies to self-monitor and self-correct
Have an interest in books and read for pleasure
Have an interest in words, their meanings; developing a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms
Understand a range of text types and genre and be able to write in a variety of styles and forms appropriate to the situation
Develop powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness
Have a suitable technical vocabulary to articulate their responses

SDP - Intent, Implementation, Impact

Intent

To teach the skills of reading to enable children to become confident, fluent readers who use reading as a tool to explore the wider world and further their own learning journey. We also aim to build a lifelong love of literature so that throughout their lives children can use the literary world as a means of escapism, relaxation and pure enjoyment.

Curriculum Aims

Reading is an integral part of the English curriculum which has an overarching aim to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping children with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The national curriculum for English aims to ensure that all pupils:

read easily, fluently and with good understanding
develop the habit of reading widely and often, both for pleasure and information
acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.

Implementation

At Furness Primary School, our reading curriculum is designed to meet the needs of our pupils ensuring our curriculum intentions are met. We do this through;

We use Bug Club Phonics, a clear, consistent and systematic approach to the teaching and learning of synthetic phonics.. It is also one of the DfE’s approved phonics teaching programmes which supports all children to acquire the skills necessary to be able to read independently by the age of seven. Phases 1 and 2 are introduced in Nursery and with daily phonic sessions in Reception to Year 2, children are able to make good progress. Phonic is assessed termly and children are re-grouped accordingly.
Whole class /Guided Reading in KS1 - We use our phonics assessments to group children in KS1 so that they read books matched to their phonic ability. The whole-class approach to reading is used and the children have several opportunities to read.
Whole class/ Guided Reading in KS2 - Reading is taught in groups with the whole class reading the same text. This is done so that all children have an opportunity to access high quality texts linked to their topic. Reading is used as a tool to inform and inspire writing.

Reading V.I.P.E.R.S. is the approach we use to teach reading across the school; ……………..Our aim is to bring the books to life and provide additional experiences to enable to children to fully access the texts, develop their vocabulary and provide them with the knowledge and experiences required to infer meaning and deepen their understanding.

Cross Curricular Reading is encouraged and children are given opportunities to do their own reading/research in their topic work allowing them to see the value of reading to learn and discover.
Comprehension is a key skill and specific sessions are used to support children’s understanding of how to respond to specific questions about the text. This is taught within whole-class reading sessions so that decoding, comprehension and answering questions are all taught concurrently.
Home Reading is a vital part of our curriculum and children are encouraged to read at home at least three times per a week. Children are assessed within school and take home books matched to their reading ability. Parental involvement is key and when possible they are invited in to share stories with their children. Many of the books we send home are published by Oxford University Press
Class Novels have been identified for each year group to ensure that during their time in school the children are able to enjoy a wide range of genres. There is a particular emphasis on the more classical texts as we want the children to hear books that they perhaps wouldn't normally choose themselves. Enjoying a class story is so important to us that reading to our children is timetabled on every class timetable. (D.E.A.R.)
Book Week - To inspire and motivate a love of reading, we hold an annual book week during the school year to: introduce children to new authors; have reading competitions; provide opportunities to share favourite tales with friends and family and to immerse children in a fictional world.
World Book Day - Each year we celebrate National World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite character from a book. This is a day to celebrate and share our favourite books and our general love of reading.
Book Fair - To promote the love of reading we give the children opportunities to buy their own books so that they can start to build their own collection of favourite books at home. We hold a book fair at least once a year where we can sell the books for half the retail price.
Library - The Furness library is a lovely calm place in school where children can go to read a book. It is supported by some junior librarians who try their best to promote different authors and recommend good reads for the younger children. Each year, we involve the librarians, and the wider school, in selecting new books to ensure that we have reading material to suite everyone. Each class also has a book area where children can select books for reading in school.
Assessment is a vital tool for establishing the progress the children are making and for identifying the next steps in learning. At Furness Primary we formally test the children, from Year 1 to Year 6, each term using ….. tests. These give us a standardised score which we can report to parents. However, this is only one part of the picture, we also use our professional judgment when working with the children to assess where they are up to and assign a Teacher Assessment grade each half term - this is done on an assessment system called Target Tracker.