English
English at Park Road Primary School
At Park Road, we believe that literacy and communication is at the heart of life long learning. Because literacy is the basis for social, intellectual and emotional development we provide a varied and progressive curriculum as the children pass through the year groups. Through our curriculum, we allow for progression in reading and writing which will give the children the knowledge and understanding for good communication, both written and verbally, with their peers and the wider community. To this end, we aim to deliver an integrated scheme of reading, writing and speaking & listening across all years.
Literacy is the foundation for all children's learning and at Park Road we aspire to encourage the children to become independent learners who take pride and ownership in everything they do. We want to inspire children to become imaginative, consistent and ambitious when writing and to provide them with the tools to become authors. Through our English curriculum, we provide the children with purposeful and varied outcomes which are shared with our school and the wider community.
Reading underpins everything we do at Park Road and exposure to high quality texts and genres allows children to expand their ever growing knowledge of the world and its communities. We want our children to have a love of reading, be able to access all texts with fluency and be able to discuss and explain their opinions and preferences. We understand the important link between reading and writing and so we ensure that the children are exposed to texts that are appropriate for their age and ability.
Our staff at Park Road have high expectations of all our children and so try to encourage a love of reading both for pleasure and information, by whole class sessions, guided reading sessions, daily reading for pleasure and 1 - 1 reading, where appropriate, to ensure that all our pupils reach their full potential.
In our school we use a variety of recommended Literacy schemes and assessment tools with regular moderation to ensure standardised and consistent approaches to marking throughout all years groups. This allows us to follow all the children’s progress in their learning from EYFS to Y6.
Our aim is for the children to use their literacy skills across all areas of the curriculum and show confidence in their writing, reading, understanding and communication and to use these skills to further their knowledge of the wider world.
Reading
Reading at Park Road is taught mainly through systematic synthetic phonics which helps children learn to associate sounds with letters. As children progress, more emphasis is then placed on teaching comprehension skills.
We use a range of reading materials and interactive computer games such as Phonicsplay in a fun and exciting way and plan from the 'Letters and Sounds' programme.
Guided reading takes place in all classes where teachers teach the skills of reading and then provide the opportunity for children to then practise them throughout the day and at home.
We do not have a specific reading scheme in KS1 but use a variety of fiction and non-fiction books from different publishers.
Home readers - children can choose from a variety of different kinds of books, which provide the opportunity to practise and apply reading and comprehensions skills taught at school.
In KS1, all home readers are Book Banded into colour groups so that children take the appropriate book home to ensure they are practising skills at their level.
Click on the National Curriculum image for the National Curriculum programme of study for English