English

At our school, we believe that learning to read is the foundation for all education. We aim to inspire a lifelong love of reading for pleasure, knowledge, and information, enabling every child—regardless of need, ability, or background—to meet and exceed National Curriculum expectations. 

Early Reading & Phonics

Our reading journey begins as soon as children join us in EYFS. We deliver systematic, high-quality phonics teaching to give pupils the foundational skills needed to decode words and begin reading independently.

Phonics 

Children are taught the fundamental link between letters and sounds, progressing systematically through structured phonics phases. We use a scheme called Rocket Phonics. 

Progression

Our clear progression map ensures every child builds on their phonetic knowledge step-by-step. You can find our progression map here.

First Reading Books

Early reading books are carefully matched to each child's current phonic knowledge, ensuring they practice using sounds they already know and build confidence from day one. 

Reading in school 

In school we aim to read with children as often as possible. Children participate in small-group guided reading sessions led by an adult. Working in small groups  allows our teachers and support staff to provide personalised attention and observe reading behaviours.During these sessions, pupils have the opportunity to read aloud in an encouraging, small-scale environment, practice targeted decoding and comprehension skills, and engage in meaningful discussions about the text to deepen their understanding. 

Reading at home 

Reading at home is a vital step toward reading success and one of the most powerful ways to support your child's learning. In Key Stage 1, regularly sharing books at home helps children consolidate the phonics skills and vocabulary they learn in the classroom, building both reading confidence and fluency. To encourage regular home reading, pupils collect 'reading tokens'. Once enough tokens are earned, classes celebrate together with a special reward of their choice—such as enjoying juice and biscuits in the staff room! 

To support parents with home reading, we hold a weekly Early Reading Drop In every Friday after school. 

Key Stage 2 (KS2)

In Key Stage 2, reading is taught through whole-class shared reading. This structure ensures that every child reads every day and engages with rich, challenging texts alongside their peers.

Our reading curriculum is built around carefully sequenced, high-quality, and age-appropriate texts from Literacy Counts' Ready Steady Read Together units of learning.

This approach provides dynamic, inclusive lessons that incorporate metacognitive strategies and showcase diverse literature from a range of exceptional authors.

We teach a range of comprehension strategies that are revisited across and between the years on a regular basis. This allows the learning to be embedded and allows children to acquire the skills necessary to become a confident reader. 

Our reading lessons have a clear structure:

• High-Quality, Diverse Texts: Lessons use rich extracts across fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, exposing children to a wide variety of literature, complex themes, and expanded vocabulary.
• Explore: Lessons open by exploring context, introducing and relearning vocabulary, and activating prior knowledge to set the stage for the text.
• Teach (Explicit Modelling): The teacher models fluent reading (intonation, pace, expression) and explicitly demonstrates reading strategies, showing pupils how skilled readers decode meaning, ask questions, and break down complex passages.
• Practise (Collaborative Discussion & Rereading): Children engage in "Book Talk," text marking, drama, and paired or group discussions. Rereading passages builds fluency while allowing pupils to construct deeper meaning together.
• Apply (Independent & Low-Stakes Retrieval): Pupils demonstrate their comprehension through written, verbal, or interactive tasks (such as low-stakes quizzes and structured response sheets) mapped directly to National Curriculum reading domains.