READING

Reading at the heart of our curriculum.

Reading to develop our knowledge and understanding of the world.

'How best then to describe literature? At its basic level, it is collection of unique combinations of twenty-six small black marks on a white surface - 'letters', in other words, since the word 'literature' means things made of letters. Those combinations are more magical than anything a conjuror can pull out of his top hat. Yet a better answer would be that literature is the human mind at the very height of its ability to express and interpret the world around us. Literature, at its best, does not simplify, but it enlarges our minds and sensibilities to the point where we can better handle complexity - even if, as is often the case, we don't entirely agree with what we are reading.

Why read literature?

Because it makes us more human. And the better we learn to read it, the better it will do that.

A promise to the child from our school of all the literature they will have to read.

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-Depth and breadth of literature study

-Diversity of literature experiences

-Explicit teaching of core reading strategies, including vocabulary

-Cohesive learning approaches

-Build reading fluency

-Build domain knowledge and understanding

-Prepare for future reading demands

-Equity for all readers

The Reading and Phonics Provision Pathway

The Reading and Phonics Provision Pathway is how we ensure that all pupils have the correct reading material and provision to learn to read and read to learn. It is a structure that ensures all pupils have a rigorous, purposeful and appropriately challenging reading and phonics provision throughout Key Stage 2, building upon the assessment and outcomes from Key Stage One.

The pathway aims to empower all pupils with the knowledge and skill of reading, at any attainment level, but also provide ambition and challenge so that every pupil can begin Key Stage 3 able to read across a wide range of contexts with confidence and self-esteem.

Weekly Reading Running Records provide rigorous checks to ensure all children are accurately text matched.

Building a reader's mental model

How do pupils best build these mental models to understand the world around them and what they read of it? A slow and effortful integration of lots of background knowledge matters for all comprehension, of course.

Before each new Project X Origins theme, children are immersed in the experiences and themes that will be explored in their guided reading sessions.

The ‘Big Idea’ sessions:

-Draw out children’s knowledge and experiences

-Explore the context of the text: historical, social, geographical etc

-Harvest and understand new vocabulary

-Explore language

-Range of experiences

-Make connections to books already read

Accuracy, automaticity & prosody = fluency

The following approaches are well supported by evidence and explicitly taught as part of our reading offer:

• guided oral reading instruction—fluent reading of a text is modelled by an adult or peer and pupils then read the same text aloud with appropriate feedback;

• repeated reading—pupils re-read a short and meaningful passage a set number of times or until they reach a suitable level of fluency.

POETRY FRIDAY

We want every child in our school to experience the powerful world of performance poetry. Every Friday, the whole school takes part in Poetry Friday, where year groups learn, analyse and perform some of the most iconic - and also some of the less well-known - poems from across the ages.

The aims of Poetry Friday reach far beyond learning words:

Provide diverse learning experiences;
Provide depth and breadth of literature study: knowledge of poems, poets and the social/historical contexts;
Explicit teaching of reading strategies: key literary concepts & vocabulary instruction;
Builds confidence in reading fluency, oracy and performance.
Appreciation and love of poetry.

Her is our poetry offer to all children at our school:

All our children will leave our school with a secure knowledge of a range poems, poets and the social and historical contexts. The children will also be confident to examine and discuss poetry, confident with the foundations of key literary concepts.

THE POETRY PREFORMANCE

“Sprezzatura is to make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”

All children will learn and perform a different poem every half term. Explicit teaching of the physical oracy strand, as well as studying how expert poets read poetry well, will empower our children to become true performers, all underpinned by their in-depth knowledge of the poem and its background.

Celebrations, assemblies, festivals and other poignant events. Here are our Year 6 children performing Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum est at the Armistice Day service in the Holy Trinity Parish Church.

POEM OF THE DAY

Each day, the class share a poem from the beautiful book I AM THE SEED THAT GREW THE TREE. The poem-a-day is a time for children to enjoy and share in the wonder of words. As their knowledge of poetry grows, so too will their appreciation for the poetry and the poet.

Reading to learn and celebrating diversity

Our subjects, across the broad range of the curriculum, have a key text that fuel our scientists, geographers and historians with all the key knowledge they need.

We also ensure children have access to a wide range of books that celebrate diversity.