English
Reading
At Redhill, it is our aim to instil a love of reading for all our children!
This is achieved through exposure to a wide variety of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Each week children have the opportunity to explore texts through Shared, Guided and Independent Reading sessions, using a range of Reading Domains. Children progress through the Book Bands in order to develop fluency and resilience when reading, building on and applying these skills to understand what they read.
Reading Recovery style - intervention is also well established in the school, which gives pupils who are struggling with their reading a daily lesson (delivered by highly trained teachers) over a given period in order for them to catch up with their peers. Other reading interventions implemented across the school include Every Child a Reader, Better Reading Partnerships and the Inference Intervention.
For further support on reading with your child, speak to your child's teacher or visit the following websites:
Top tips to support your child's reading
How to read with your child through primary school
You can also access the question stems below which are used in Guided Reading:
Library
All pupils have a book bag and are encouraged to choose a home reader every week. These are levelled using Book Bands and older children can choose a non-banded book when they are ready. Children can also select a library book weekly too. . There is a good selection in school including graphic novels, non-fiction, poetry and genre-based narratives. Each class has a slot to visit the library every week to change books and to have shared reading time.
Our 6 School Librarians will be happy to help you find the book you are looking for or give you a recommendation! They also play an active part in reading events such as World Book Day and Harry Potter Book Night - they plan and lead assemblies and read to the younger classes.
Speaking and Listening
This is an integral part of every lesson across the curriculum at Redhill. Children are taught the importance of excellent communication skills in order to talk confidently and effectively with a partner, in small groups and in front of an audience. They are encouraged to listen and respond to each other’s views and opinions and also to ask questions to extend their learning. Higher order or analytical questioning are encouraged to improve and extend understanding for all pupils.
Writing
During our daily English lessons, children are encouraged to develop and express their thoughts and ideas through drama, role play and discussion in a range of whole class, group and paired opportunities. Learning is brought alive through a range of visual resources, rich quality texts, speaking and listening opportunities and group discussion. Each unit of work is directly linked to another curriculum area and the children will have opportunities to write a range of texts for different audiences and purposes. This allows children to make natural and meaningful links in other subject areas, using aspects of literacy confidently and with enjoyment.
Writing is also taught through a weekly SMART write session where there is a dedicated opportunity for children to develop a piece of purposeful and sustained writing which is linked directly to our cross-curricular topics. Key Stage 2 classes also have a discrete weekly grammar lesson in order to support their understanding of the complex grammar system before using their SMART write session as an opportunity to apply these skills.
Phonics and Early Reading
Reception and KS1
At Redhill, children follow the 'Jolly Phonics' systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) scheme to learn their letter sounds and grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs). This knowledge is supported and extended by carefully planned and structured daily phonics lessons that focus initially on word reading and spelling (blending and segmenting), and move the children on to sentence reading and writing when they are ready. These daily phonics sessions are further enhanced by our guided reading lessons, where the children are given opportunities to apply the phonic knowledge that they have learned through reading books containing the key GPCs for each phonics phase. See below for a break-down of the phases and their corresponding book bands:
Click here to see our Reception overview
Click here to see our Year 1 overview
We also have a dedicated ‘phonics’ teacher who works with Year 1 children to deliver twice weekly booster groups (funded through our Pupil Premium) in order to prepare the children for the statutory phonics screening check at the end of Year 1. This phonics screening check consists of 20 real and 20 made up words containing the phonemes taught across the year. Children who do not meet the expected standard in Year 1 will be supported with interventions such as Direct Phonics; Reading Recovery style intervention or Better Readers in Year 2 and have the chance to sit the screening check again at the end of Year 2.
The Direct Phonics intervention is used by teaching assistants to support children with Special Educational Needs across the school (from Year 1 to Y6 as needed) to make progress in phonics. Newly arrived children are also included in the Direct Phonics intervention if they need additional phonics support.
The below websites are great for supporting your child at home:
To find out more information about phonics and how it can be used to support your child’s reading and learning, visit the Oxford Owl website
To watch a short video showing the actions that go with each sound please click here
Click here for more information about the phonics screening check.
Spelling
KS1 and KS2
Spelling is taught in accordance with the National Curriculum and children are taught a range of spelling patterns. In Years 1 and 2, children learn a set list of 'common exception words' and in Years 3 and 4, 5 and 6 children have a list of 'statutory' words to learn every two years:
