English
English at Buntingford First School will aim to encourage students to read widely for pleasure and, ultimately, to use literature as a gateway to access the world and its different viewpoints and perspectives. Our aim is to develop analytical reading and critical thinking skills that will enable students to discover, evaluate and critique the texts that they engage with. Moreover, we'll strive to build a fluency in written and oral communication so that students are equipped to explore and present their thoughts, feelings and viewpoints and to produce students who have the confidence, articulacy, creativity and skills to contribute to their societies.
KS1
At Buntingford First School, we teach phonics using Little Wandle as our SSP provider. We use the resources provided to create fun and interactive ways for the children to learn phonics. This is in the form of whole class sessions and in smaller groups.
From the moment a child joins us in Nursery, there will be a huge emphasis on Communication and Language in our EYFS so that our children develop confidence with a wide variety of vocabulary. We know that spoken language underpins all 7 areas of learning. Phonics is key but this is only one aspect of reading – making sense of the words is equally important. To do this we have high quality interactions between practitioners and children that provides a language rich environment with the back-and-forth interactions that include the modelling, questioning and facilitation that the children need in order to begin more formal phonics teaching in Reception.
In Reception, children begin on phase 2 moving to phase 3 as they become secure on the phonemes taught. Phase 2 is where the children begin learning their initial sounds and start the process of blending to read words and simple sentences. Phase 3 explores digraphs and trigraphs that the children need to be able to read longer words. Phase 4 will provide plenty of recap opportunities before, in the summer term, the children will then explore the more complex sounds in Phase 5. The children receive daily phonics sessions which includes saying and writing the sounds they have learnt and forming words.
In Year 1 the children will focus on securing Phase 5 to ensure their knowledge is secure and they can automatically apply their phonics knowledge to unfamiliar words. By this time, they use digraphs and consonant blends to read longer words and sentences, this also includes the ‘alien (nonsense) words’. In June, the children will take part in the Phonics Screening Check which will assess if they have secured the expected phonics knowledge.
In Year 2 and beyond, any children who still require phonics support will be able to access this via small group interventions.
KS2
Our English programme is to include a balance of reading, writing, spelling, speaking and listening. Key skills of grammar, punctuation and spelling are explicitly taught.
Each year group will study at least one fiction, one non-fiction and one poetry module each term to ensure coverage of the different genres. We will differentiate learning so all children can succeed and be challenged.
All children will complete a termly piece of writing for assessment against the National Curriculum criteria for Age Related Expectations and a termly reading paper.
