At Heaton Park Primary and Nursery School we celebrate books and always strive to encourage a love of books and reading in our children and families. We provide the children with many daily opportunities to enjoy and share books with others.<\/p>\n
Our whole school provides the pupils with a language rich environment enabling pupils to access reading of different types on a daily basis. Each classroom has an inviting reading area with a wide range of reading materials to support all reading abilities.<\/p>\n
In Early Years and Year 1, during reading sessions with a teacher, children read carefully selected books (fiction and non-fiction) from a range of published reading schemes (Oxford Reading Tree, Collins Big Cat Readers, Rigby Stars, Pearson\u2019s Phonic Bug and Project X) matched to their current reading ability. Every child is heard to read in this manner on a weekly basis and explicitly taught the skills needed to develop their reading further. Pupils are also given the opportunity to explore these books independently to enable them to practise these skills. Pupils also take part in whole class reading sessions, with a focus on decoding and comprehension.<\/p>\n
In Year 2, children continue with whole class reading sessions with a focus on comprehension. This prepares children\u00a0 for the more formal assessments and approaches to reading in Key Stage 2. Children that require additional guided reading, also continue with this.<\/p>\n
Other reading opportunities throughout the day occur through a wide range of activities such as whole class \u2018shared reading sessions\u2019 focusing on a text (fiction and non-fiction), story time when books are shared and enjoyed, opportunity to listen to books in class listening areas, text linked to cross-curricular work and Computing. By ensuring that our children read a wide range of texts we are confident that we are meeting their preferred learning style. Throughout Key Stage 1, we also have our much loved ‘3 a day’ books. These are books that are each shared with the children daily and the children get to know them well.<\/p>\n
Reading in Key Stage 2 is approached as a whole class with pockets of children working in smaller groups dependent upon their ability. Reading to Learn lessons take place 4 – 5 times a week with some children having additional where required. Reading to Learn lessons incorporate texts of a longer length, such as chapter books (especially up in Upper Key Stage 2), text extracts, poetry and non-fiction texts. These texts are often linked to the topic being covered in that year group at that time. We also build in opportunities to access classic texts and poetry within these Reading to Learn sessions. Skills such as retrieval, inference, vocabulary, prediction and summarising are all taught in a formal way. Reading and answers are modelled by the teachers to ensure children have good examples to follow and will always know what is expected of them and how to develop their answers further.<\/p>\n
The way we approach reading at Heaton Park has a positive effect on all pupils. We strive for all pupils to access all subjects and deem reading as being the key skill in being able to do this. Our reading program is successful in supporting children to become fluent and avid readers and life long learners.<\/p>\n
A Year of Reading at Heaton Park<\/a><\/p>\n Vision for Reading HP<\/a><\/p>\n Reading Policy Reviewed Sept 2023<\/a><\/p>\n Children take home a range of fiction and non-fiction books from a wide range of reading schemes, the books are colour coded according to the \u2018book band system\u2019. This allows the children to independently access the books which have been carefully selected to match their current reading ability. Parents are requested to fill in the reading diary in order to give the school feedback on their child\u2019s reading progress. The children\u2019s home reading book is a book band below the book they are reading in school. This is to give the children the confidence and enjoyment at home. Reception and Year 1 have moved to accessing texts through Pearson Phonics Bug online. Whilst we are awaiting further texts to be published that are linked to our phonics scheme, books matched to a child’s phonic ability will be allocated and accessed online. Children may also take home a physical decodable book each week, however, this may be a text that a child has read previously and will not be matched to a child’s current phonic level.<\/p>\n Older and more able readers are able to also take home a library book each week. This is a book that is chosen by themselves to share at home with a family member or to be read independently.<\/p>\n Phonics is taught daily throughout Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. All children are immersed in a phonic and language rich environment in class and the continuous provision. We have recently bought into a new and exciting phonics scheme called ‘Supersonic Phonic Friends’. Several characters help the children to do different jobs within the phonic lessons and ultimately this helps them to learn to read. This scheme follows the ‘Letters and Sounds’ format and\u00a0is split into six \u2018phases\u2019:<\/p>\n We assess the children regularly on their progress and reorganise the groups based on this. Therefore, we know that every child is always learning the letters and sounds that are appropriate to their needs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At Heaton Park, we try our very best to engage all children in the topics that they are covering and use related texts to do this. All writing opportunities are linked to current topics and are mostly based upon a text that is being covered in class. This cross curricular approach allows children to become really immersed in the topic that they are studying and brings writing to life for them.<\/p>\n The audience and purpose for writing is always at the forefront of the minds of the children when writing and covering genres such as narrative, recounts, persuasive and descriptive writing. Specific features for the genre are taught to ensure that children have a good understanding of the features for that genre of writing. This is then followed by a warm write (features have been taught). Children are then taught about editing and redrafting effectively which then produces their final hot write within this sequence.<\/p>\n Teachers plan lessons based on the ‘Grammarsaurus’ approach which provides consistency in our approaches to writing from Year 1 to Year 6.<\/p>\n Handwriting Scheme cursive straight<\/a><\/p>\n Writing Policy Reviewed September 2023<\/a><\/p>\n Spelling rules are taught explicitly each week. Children are then given opportunities in and out of school to practise spellings using both auditory, kinaesthetic and visual styles to support all learning styles. We also subscribe to Edshed – a competitive spelling platform – for children in Years 1 to 6. We also link our handwriting sessions to our spelling so that the shape of the word can aid with children being able to spell.<\/p>\n Each child has a log in for ED Shed. This can be accessed in school and at home to support children in practising their spellings that have been allocated by their teacher.<\/p>\n Grammar and punctuation is mostly taught through writing and is covered through teaching of the different genres of text. However, we do also revise and overlearn grammar and punctuation daily in basic skills sessions as part of our English lessons.<\/p>\n English Long Term Plan Nursery<\/a><\/p>\n English Long Term Plan Reception<\/a><\/p>\n English Long Term Plan Year 1<\/a><\/p>\n English Long Term Plan Year 2<\/a><\/p>\n English Long Term Plan Year 3<\/a><\/p>\n English Long Term Plan Year 4<\/a><\/p>\n English Long Term Plan Year 5<\/a><\/p>\nHome Reading Books<\/h4>\n
Phonics<\/h4>\n
\n
\n
Writing<\/h4>\n
Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar<\/h4>\n
Our English Curriculum<\/h4>\n