The Reading 'Big Ideas'

The ‘Big Ideas’ relate to elements within a subject discipline or refer to important concepts that contribute to pupils’ personal and social development. It is essential that the ‘Big Ideas’ within each subject are understood by the children and become part of their common classroom language. In science, these 'Big Ideas' are:

• Enjoyment
• Accuracy
• Comprehension

English for Communication, Consolidation and Community

At Heatherlands Primary School, communication is at the heart of the curriculum. All children will be equipped with the skills they need to interact with the learning in all subjects, and to navigate their daily lives. Teaching and learning in English provides the bedrock for developing excellent communication skills: within spoken language, within reading and within writing.

We have a text-driven English curriculum, whereby high-quality texts support progress and outcomes in reading and writing. Children are encouraged to read widely; in the earlier stages to decode, and then to develop fluency and confidence, which in turn will build their comprehension skills. High quality literature sparks children’s imaginations and inspires high quality writing outcomes in each year group.

As the National Curriculum 2014 states, “Pupils’ acquisition and command of vocabulary are key to their learning and progress across the whole curriculum.” The school aims to cultivate a vocabulary-rich environment, as a means to helping all children develop their experience and understanding of the world.

Consolidation happens through regular opportunities for the children to put their learning in all areas of English into practice independently, not only within English but in foundation subjects too. These “sites of application” of learning provide robust opportunities for teachers to assess children’s performance.

Through the English curriculum, children consolidate the essential skills for effective communication and are thus equipped to become confident and eloquent members of the community, on a school level, a local level and a global level. They will be given the skills to take an active role in life as a British citizen.

Reading

“If pupils cannot read, they will not be able to access the curriculum, and will be disadvantaged for life.” (Research for Education Inspection Framework, 2019)

Reading is placed at the heart of our curriculum. We aim to create readers who are not only able to decode texts successfully and confidently, but can also enjoy and understand deeper meanings within the literature they read. Children embark on their reading journey with fast-paced, engaging phonics lessons (please see our rationale for teaching phonics), and the fluency they develop leads to effective comprehension skills. High quality texts drive the English curriculum, as sources of rich vocabulary and word play, providing a springboard into interesting and imaginative writing tasks and also a fascinating ‘window to the world’, building children’s general knowledge and cultural capital. Furthermore, rich texts inspire the writing outcomes in English lessons and provide the stimulus for the reading comprehension sessions that take place throughout the week.

Reading Opportunities at Heatherlands

Of course, rich and stimulating texts drive the curriculum in English and dedicated reading sessions (as outlined above). The children also have a variety of other reading opportunities throughout the week.

Every day, the children are expected to read when they arrive at school, from 8.45 am, until 9.10 am. They read a variety of texts including fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and complete response activities, which link to different reading skills. During this time, teachers and TAs take the opportunity to hear the children read. Often, reading volunteers also read with the children.

At the end of the day, from 3pm, until 3.15pm, all teachers read to their classes. The onus is on reading for pleasure and enjoyment. We recognise that this is a valuable activity which ends the day in a calm and enjoyable way, and provides the children with a good model of fluent and expressive reading.

In Key Stage 2, ‘reading buddies’ takes place each week. Year 5 and 6 children are buddied up with children in Years 3 and 4, and undertake paired reading with them. They might also discuss their book choice and hear each other read independently. This is a valuable time when the older children act as reading role models, and both parties get a boost to their reading skills.

In the autumn term, EYFS classes run ‘Phonics Friday’ where parents are invited in to school learn about phonics alongside their children. These sessions have proved immensely popular with parents who welcome the way they helped the parents gain a better understanding of early reading and how they can help at home.

Each year, a number of pupils work with Dorset Reading Partners (http://www.dorsetreadingpartners.org.uk/) which is a charity that recruits, trains and equips volunteer reading partners to support children with their reading development. They provide one-to-one support for some of our vulnerable readers.

Some of our vulnerable readers in Year 5 are supported by our sports coach on Friday afternoons, reading books which they have chosen themselves and also taking part in fun, active and sporty activities during the session. The competitive nature of the session inspires the boys and they are able to read with a strong male reading role model.

Other bespoke reading interventions are run throughout the week by various members of staff.

The Heatherlands Reading Culture

We would like all the children in the school to be keen, motivated readers, who discover a wide range of literature, and are confident in making independent book choices. For this reason, we have tied our wider school values in with our reading culture: 

Reading Fridays! - At Heatherlands, we believe that reading is vital for the development of our children, and one of our key priorities at Heatherlands is to help them foster both a love of reading and books.

In order to support the children, develop this love of reading, we recognise that it is important to be ‘reading rolemodels’, encouraging the children to enjoy books and modelling how to read with pride and enthusiasm.

To help with this, we would like to invite you to join your child in school, to read and enjoy a story together and take the opportunity to share books the children love!

The upcoming dates for these sessions are:

Year 1 - 6th October.

Year 2 - 13th October.

EYFS - 3rd November.

Year 3 - 10th November.

Year 4 - 17th November.

Year 5 & 6 - 24th November.

The sessions will start at 2.45pm.

As part of Heatherlands World Book Week, we have introduced the children to the Read for Good Readathon!

The charity Read for Good encourages children to read whatever they want to read, from comics to classics and audiobooks to blogs; they are not being assessed, instead the focus is on reading for pleasure.  

A major feature of the Readathon is raising sponsorship for the reading the children complete, the money they raise helping to provide a regular supply of brand new books and a resident storyteller to major children’s hospitals in the UK.  

Children can be sponsored using the card they have taken home or at this website: 

https://readathon.my.salesforce-sites.com/sponsor/R4G_SponsorPupilFindSchool1

Happy reading!

“Sooper Books" - Free School library

Sooper Books has kindly donated all of their award-winning stories and audiobooks to our school. Please use the following links to access the stories and audiobooks free of charge from school or from home:

Bedtime stories — a selection of the world’s best 5-10 minute bedtime stories and audiobooks

Fairy tales — a selection of classic fairy tales retold in a modern and fun way

Sooper Series — a selection of original stories in episode format. Each episode is a separate 10-15 minute story

Rhymes & Poems — a selection of 3-5 minute funny rhymes

Aesop’s fables — a selection of 3-5 minute moral tales, retold in a fun and modern way

Reading

The children progress through the book band colour programme which allows the school to track, monitor and assess progress in line with age related expectations.

Reintroducing Bug Club.

Bug Club is a wonderful tool to change the children´s mind about reading as something tedious and transform it to the reality of reading as something fun, interactive, and challenging.

https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/login?c=0

We are happy to announce that we are using Bug Club again as a resource to support reading at home. Every child has their own unique user name and the books selected for them have been carefully chosen to match their book band colour.

A Bug Club bookmark will be sent home with your child's user name and password and the school ID and you will be able to access books online that are suited to the needs of your child.

Please ask the class teacher if you need any information on using Bug Club but the children have also been shown how to access their own library of books.

Paired Reading Project

Have you ever read a book aloud with someone else? Why not try using paired reading to help develop reading fluency. The children in Key Stage 2 at Heatherlands all have reading buddies to support each other with reading – Year 3 and Year 5, Year 4 and Year 6. Prior to reading, the readers decide on signals to show when one reader feels more confident to read independently. During paired reading, both readers initially read together in tandem. Have a look at the paired reading guide and give it a go yourself.

Home Reading

All children have a book band reading scheme book which they take home to read daily. It is recommended that children read as much as possible.

Children who cannot read well at the end of primary school are less likely to succeed in secondary school and, in adult hood, are likely to earn less than their peers.  Children’s reading ability and later life chances, London :Save The Children

Lawton K

Early Years and years 1 and 2 have a reading record book which parents are to sign when having heard their child read at home.

Please refer to the guidelines letter to see the expectation of parental support with home reading for Key Stage 2.

Parent Workshops

Throughout the school year there are various phonics, reading and writing workshops available for you to attend. Details of these will be sent to you by letter.

Advice for  hearing your child read and spell:

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/welcome-back/for-home/reading-owl/top-tips--3