English
Intent: We believe that mastering English is the foundation for a life of opportunity. Our vision is to nurture lifelong readers and confident communicators who possess the skills to express their ideas with clarity, creativity and purpose across all forms of spoken and written language. We strive to ensure every child builds the knowledge necessary to participate fully in society, both now and in the fast-changing world of the future.
Implementation: Our English curriculum is comprised of carefully sequenced journeys where grammar, punctuation, and spelling are woven into daily learning. At the heart of our curriculum lie high-quality, diverse texts and a rich selection of film and digital media. These are carefully chosen to reflect our community and challenge our pupils, serving as the spark for imagination and a bridge to the wider world.
Impact: We aspire for our learners to become independent writers who take pride in their work, who adapt their voice for a broad range of contexts and future communication demands, articulate ideas with a rich vocabulary and technical accuracy, and engage deeply with current affairs and themes across the wider curriculum.
Phonics and Early Reading
At Colden Common Primary School, we follow the Little Wandle phonics scheme. Please click the link to access the Little Wandle Parents section of their website, which gives more information about how to support the teaching of phonics at home.
Pupils at Colden Common will begin Little Wandle in Year R and they continue to follow the programme until it is complete which is usually at the end of Year 1. In Year 2, pupils will review phonics taught in Year 1 in order to consolidate learning and after Christmas, they will begin the Little Wandle Year 2 spelling programme which is designed to bridge phonics to spelling.
https://www.collinshub.co.uk/login/Alongside daily phonics sessions, we also teach the children to read in small groups with an adult three times a week. Books are selected for children based on their individual phonics knowledge following an assessment. The reading sessions are focused on decoding, prosody and comprehension. Through these guided reading sessions, we are teaching our children to become confident, independent readers. The books that the children read at school are added to your child’s ebook library on Collins Hub. Please click on the link for access to Collins Hub.
In addition to the Collins Hub ebooks, children take home a reading book from school which is broadly matched to their reading level and they are able to select a book from the library to share at home.
If you would like more access to reading materials for your child please take a look at Sora.
Sora – Sora is an ebook app which allows children access to the Hampshire School Library Service collection of books, graphic novels, audiobooks and magazines. Please click on the link to access Sora. You will need to select ‘Colden Common Primary School’ and have your child’s username to access it.
If you are would like more information about recommended reads for your child, The Book Trust is a good website to use. Please click on this link to find recommended reads for your child: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/bookfinder/
Year R (EYFS) – Phonics and Reading
Phonics
In our EYFS setting, we teach phonics from week 2 of the autumn term. Pupils are taught phonics daily by their class teacher and they read in a small group with an adult three times a week.
This is an overview of the phonics programme:
Pupils are assessed every six weeks to ensure that they are making progress. If there are gaps, the child will have ‘keep-up’ sessions in the afternoons with an LSA.
Reading
In school your child will read three times a week in a small group with an adult.
Day 1: Decoding – We teach the children to identify phonemes in the word and practise reading the word by breaking up the sounds and blending.
Day 2: Prosody – We teach the children to read with expression and fluency.
Day 3: Comprehension – Now that the children are able to read the book more fluently, we focus on understanding the book using questions and developing comprehension strategies. Your child’s class teacher will stamp their reading log so that you can see when your child has been read with at school.
Year 1 – Phonics and Reading
Phonics
In Year 1 pupils are taught phonics daily by their class teacher and they read in a small group with an adult four times a week.
Pupils are assessed every six weeks to ensure that they are making progress. If there are gaps, the child will have ‘keep-up’ sessions in the afternoons with an LSA.
Reading
In school your child will read four times a week in a small group with an adult.
Day 1: Decoding – We teach the children to identify phonemes in the word and practise reading the word by breaking up the sounds and blending.
Day 2: Fluency – We teach the children to practice reading for fluency which means that they blend in their head rather than out loud before reading the word.
Day 3: Prosody – We teach the children to read with expression.
Day 4: Comprehension – Now that the children are able to read the book more fluently, we focus on understanding the book using questions and developing comprehension strategies.
Your child’s class teacher will stamp their reading log so that you can see when your child has been read with at school.
Year 2 – Phonics, Spelling and Reading
Phonics
In Year 2 pupils are taught phonics and spelling daily by their class teacher and they read in a small group with an adult four times a week.
This is an overview of the phonics and spelling programme:
Pupils are assessed every six weeks to ensure that they are making progress. If there are gaps, the child will have ‘keep-up’ sessions in the afternoons with an LSA.
Reading
In school your child will read four times a week in a small group with an adult.
Day 1: Decoding – We teach the children to identify phonemes in the word and practise reading the word by breaking up the sounds and blending.
Day 2: Fluency – We teach the children to practice reading for fluency which means that they blend in their head rather than out loud before reading the word.
Day 3: Prosody – We teach the children to read with expression.
Day 4: Comprehension – Now that the children are able to read the book more fluently, we focus on understanding the book using questions and developing comprehension strategies.
Your child’s class teacher will stamp their reading log so that you can see when your child has been read with at school.
In the summer term, we begin to teach whole-class reading sessions to the children where we focus on teaching the skills necessary for reading comprehension. These are:
Clarify
Monitor and Summarise
Select and Retrieve
Respond and Explain
Inference
Language for effect
Reading in KS2 (Years 3-6)
At Colden Common, we teach reading skills three times a week in focused reading sessions. During these sessions, we focus on building fluency and comprehension.
To understand a text, pupils learn how to develop their ability to clarify, monitor and summarise, select and retrieve, respond and explain, infer and deduce and to recognise language used for effect.
For our reading sessions, we use high quality picture books, extracts from longer texts, poetry and non-fiction texts. Please see our English overviews for more information about the texts your child will be studying in English (below).
In addition to timetabled reading sessions, each class shares a class book read by the class teacher daily. This is selected alongside the children for interest and enjoyment.
Pupils in KS2 also enjoy reading their own book independently in class daily during independent reading sessions.
If your child is below age related expectations in reading, they may have 1:1 phonics support with an LSA following and KS2 programme called ‘Rapid Catch-Up’ which is part of our Little Wandle Scheme. Please see this link for further information about Rapid Catch-Up. The children are assessed every 4 weeks. Once they have completed this scheme, we continue to listen to your child read at least three times a week 1:1 with a book which is carefully matched to their reading ability level.