Our Rationale and Aims
At Bearnes Primary School, we believe reading is at the heart of a child’s education and journey through life. For our school, reading is a key priority. With this in mind, we have designed a high quality, robust and systematic approach to the teaching of phonics. The core principles of our systematic and synthetic phonics programme stem from Bug Club Phonics.
Our high-quality phonics teaching helps children develop their reading, writing, spelling and general communication skills. It also helps secure the crucial skills of word recognition that enables children to read fluently. This approach ensures all children and their abilities are targeted and supported as they begin their reading journey, here at Bearnes. Following this, children are supported throughout their time at Bearnes through the development of active reading strategies and questioning to develop depth and breadth within their reading.
We want all of our pupils to be able to develop a life-long love of reading allowing them to feel empowered by having the skill set needed in order to access the full curriculum in both Primary and Secondary school. Reading should not restrict a pupil obtaining their full potential in life.
We aim to:
- Develop understanding and skills to become independent, enthusiastic readers.
- Allow children to access age-relevant texts throughout their time at Bearnes
- Understand that language they have acquired, may be relevant across all areas of their learning and to apply that language where possible.
In direct reference to National Curriculum and Ofsted expectations, we will ensure that
- direct, focused phonics is taught every day in Reception and key stage 1
- children read from books with the sounds they know, while they are learning to read
- teachers and teaching assistants provide extra practice through the day for the children who make the slowest progress (the lowest 20%)
- all children in Year 3 and above can read age-appropriate books
- teachers instil in children a love of literature: the best stories and poems