Phonics and reading

At All Saints’, we know how important it is to develop a love of reading. We do lots of things to make reading enjoyable at our school!

In Reception and Year 1, we teach early reading skills through the ‘Little Wandle’ phonics scheme. This consists of daily phonics sessions where children build up their skills and understanding of letter sounds through short activities and games. When children are ready to read books with words, they begin reading in groups, pairs and (when confident) on their own. Children in Reception and Year 1 also use these skills to develop their reading comprehension and spellings which then leads to early writing skills.

Our Year 2 class uses 'Little Wandle Spelling' to build on children’s knowledge of the alphabetic code and teaches them how to spell with confidence. The programme provides a seamless link from the core Little Wandle programme used in Reception and Year 1 to becoming confident spellers and independent writers in Year 2.

In our Key Stage 2 class, reading lessons provide children with opportunities to build on their skills of predicting, sequencing events, reading with fluency, vocabulary and comprehension skills. 

Each class reads for at least 10 minutes each day, whether this is during reading and English lessons in class or as listening to a class book at the end of the day. We try and make this as fun as possible by sometimes sitting under our tables, taking our shoes off or listening to music!

Children are also given time each week to choose books from our school library and take these books home. Our designated library monitors help to keep our library organised and take pride in their role of maintaining this area of our school. As a school, we understand the importance of supporting children with finding a book that they enjoy reading and encourage children to explore new genres and authors.

We also have a weekly reading challenge where each class competes to have the highest percentage of children reading at home and are then rewarded with a new book for their class' book corner.

Writing at All Saints’

In reception, children use the skills practised in their phonics sessions (Little Wandle) to then become an independent writer. Short yet frequent writing sessions enable children to use their knowledge of letters and sounds to become writers. Adults encourage children to explore writing using play activities so that all learning is set at the children’s level of ability. Adults support children in fun and engaging activities to work on letter formation, handwriting and early writing skills such as finger spacing.

By year 1 and 2, children are confident to use their phonics knowledge to write independently. Children will focus on a model text for each unit. Daily writing sessions are used to familiarise themselves of the text and its features before practising those skills in their own writing. Each lesson will include teachers modelling writing. The lessons will also include reading and oracy lessons to extend their language. Adults support children in developing their handwriting, spelling and punctuation. The children are supported in ways to ensure that they are able to write for different purposes and genres to share their ideas and creativity and develop their writing into lengthy pieces of writing.

In key stage 2, children follow a sequence of lessons which enable them to identify new writing features. The children use explore ways of then using the writing features to the greatest effect in their own writing. Through a range of activities, children then become confident in using the writing features (as documented in the National Curriculum) to develop their own piece of independent writing. Support from adults and their peers is used to share tips, techniques and best practice and to edit writing to ensure that children can write effectively for a range of purposes.

Handwriting

As a school, we have a cursive writing policy where children learn to write in the format below. Here is a guide to our cursive writing so you can help to support your child at home. This method of forming letters makes it easier for your child to begin joining when they are ready! If there are any questions about our policy, please speak to your class teacher.

Maths

At All Saints', we use the White Rose Maths curriculum. This follows a fluency, reasoning and problem solving approach with allows all pupils to deepen and broaden their knowledge of all topics. Within each topic, pupils are exposed to concrete resources and then look at visual representations in order to finally understand each abstract concept. Using this pedagogy, our pupils become deep, critical thinkers with key transferable skills.

Times tables are a fundamental part of the primary maths curriculum. Once they have been mastered, our pupils are able to problem solve with the four operations, fractions, algebra and more! We therefore work hard to build times tables fluency throughout the year groups. In Reception and Year 1, we work on building the key maths skills such as subitising, doubling and halving. Once pupils reach Year 2, they are then ready to take on the Superhero challenges!

A great way for our pupils to practise these challenges is the 1 Minute Maths White Rose App. This is a free app to download to any device and allows pupils to practise from Reception to Year 6.