At Norton Primary School we strongly believe that reading is an essential life skill and are fully committed to helping all of our children to become confident, fluent lifelong readers by the time they leave Norton. We have high expectations of all of our children and ensure they all have equal opportunities to develop as readers.
It is a priority for us that: children have access to thought provoking text types, are given regular reading for pleasure opportunities, experience adults enjoying reading and that they can take ownership in their reading.
At Norton we are passionate about ensuring that children leave primary education as confident and eager readers and writers. We believe that phonics provides the foundations for learning as it supports the development towards reading and writing fluency.
Phonics enables children to learn to segment words which supports their spelling. It also develops the skills to blend sounds in order to read words. The teaching of phonics is of high priority at our school. Our phonics progression (see separate document) clearly shows what we would like each child to achieve in each term. We are now delivering phonics following the progression from a scheme named ‘Unlocking letters and sounds.’ This is very similar to the progression of Letters and Sounds that has been delivered for many years at Norton. The advantage of using the ULS is that it provides engaging resources to support the teaching and learning that is taking place. As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate in contacting your child’s class teacher.
At Norton School, we recognise that English skills underpin all elements of the school curriculum, and are an essential life-skill. Considering the fundamental importance of Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing in everyday life, we are driven by the need to develop each learner’s skills and knowledge, thus enabling them to play a full part in society; equipping them for Secondary School and beyond. We do this by following the National Curriculum (NC) for English – Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing.
In addition, we endeavour to instil a love of Reading and Writing in our children which will stay with them - through a creative approach which is underpinned by experiences and purpose.
This academic year we have been very excited to launch a new writing scheme, Ready Steady Write. We chose this scheme as it is based on research from the Writing Framework and Strong Foundations Publication. The scheme gives children the opportunity to master their writing through regular sentence accuracy, clear progression of steps and focusing on the foundational knowledge.
We are fully inclusive and appropriate adaptations are made for children with additional needs so that they can access the curriculum.
Lead staff member (for reading): Mrs Cooper
Lead staff member (for phonics and writing): Miss Eaton
