At Pirbright Village Primary School we recognise that English unites the important skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.  We recognise these as life skills, which enable us to make sense of the world. We aim for all children to become confident communicators as well as critical readers and writers with a capacity to express themselves through a variety of different literary activities.

Reading

Pirbright Village Primary School is committed to ensuring that every child learns to read. We want our children to become fluent, confident readers who enjoy books and read for pleasure. Throughout their time with us, children are immersed in a rich variety of stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction texts to develop their vocabulary, deepen language comprehension, and foster a genuine love of reading. Our goal is to inspire life-long readers who are motivated to read both for enjoyment and to support their learning. For children to develop the will to read, and to read in order to learn, they must first acquire secure reading skills, enabling them to read with accuracy, fluency and understanding.

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and underpins every subject area. We want every child to read widely and develop a broad, rich knowledge across the curriculum. By providing a diverse range of high-quality texts, we aim to broaden children’s horizons, deepen their understanding of the world and strengthen their cultural capital. Because reading is such an essential life skill, we prioritise helping pupils become independent readers who can process information confidently, engage fully in all learning opportunities, and move on to the next stage of their education well prepared.

Phonics and Early Reading

We teach early reading through the systematic, synthetic phonics programme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. From the start of Reception, children take part in a daily phonics lesson following the Little Wandle progression. This continues throughout Year 1 to ensure all children become fluent, confident readers. We teach phonics for 30 minutes each day. In Reception, we begin with shorter 10-minute sessions, supported by additional daily oral blending games and build to full-length lessons as quickly as possible. Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the autumn term.

We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:

• Reception: Children are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and Phase 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4), developing fluency and accuracy.

• Year 1: Children review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs, further developing fluency and accuracy.

The programme meets the expectations of the National Curriculum and the Early Learning Goals, with clearly defined, term-by-term progression. This progression outlines the grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and tricky words taught each week.

All of our early reading books are fully decodable and aligned with the Little Wandle programme. When selecting books for pupils, we ensure each one is carefully matched to the letter–sound correspondences a child has learned, enabling them to apply their phonic knowledge confidently and independently. Children continue to receive phonics teaching until they are secure, fluent readers. Phonics gives them an efficient, lifelong decoding strategy for reading unfamiliar words. Throughout daily lessons and wider learning, children have frequent opportunities to practise new GPCs and words, helping to secure learning in their long-term memory.

In EYFS and Year 1, children take part in regular reading practice sessions each week. These sessions focus on applying reading skills using fully decodable books matched to pupils’ phonic ability. Each session has a clear focus to avoid overloading working memory. The three key areas taught are:

• Decoding – applying phonic knowledge to read words accurately

• Prosody – reading with understanding, phrasing and expression

• Comprehension – understanding the meaning of the text

   

Each session begins with a pacey review of graphemes, tricky words and the fluent reading of words that appear in the book. Although these have already been taught in phonics sessions, the review helps bring them to the forefront of working memory. In comprehension sessions, the teacher focuses on a specific domain. Developing fluency is a consistent theme across all sessions. Pupils read the same book across their practice sessions and then take it home to continue developing fluency.

To further nurture a love of reading, once children have secure phonic knowledge, they are able to choose from a wider range of books matched to their reading ability.

Further Reading

Inspiring a life-long love of reading is essential and children often continue to need guidance to help them choose high-quality literature. The school’s Reading Challenge provides structure for those pupils who benefit from support in selecting books. Regular reading enables staff to monitor children’s choices and ensure they encounter a healthy level of challenge to keep them motivated, while also giving them opportunities to rehearse key reading skills until they are fully embedded.

Whole class guided reading forms a key part of reading instruction from Year 2 onwards. Texts are carefully chosen for each class and often vary from year to year. These books provide rich vocabulary, meaningful opportunities for discussion and a deep exploration of language and themes. We encourage children to read with fluency, expression, and understanding to develop true comprehension. Sometimes the chosen texts link to the wider curriculum, but they may also be selected as stand-alone books to meet the specific needs of the learners. The school makes regular use of VIPERS to support children in analysing texts, with expectations that progress appropriately as pupils move towards Year 6.

Children who require additional support to keep up with class reading are identified for Little Wandle Rapid Catch-Up or other targeted interventions. Class teachers work closely with Learning Support Assistants to identify areas of need and set clear intervention targets for small group teaching. These sessions allow pupils to practise and refine their skills, while half-termly assessments and feedback ensure that interventions are monitored for impact and adjusted where necessary.

Regular reading at home is vital in helping children build fluency and make strong progress, and parental support plays an important role. While many children may read aloud fluently, comprehension must also be nurtured and monitored. Every time a child reads with an adult in school, it is recorded on Boom Reader, and we encourage parents to do the same at home. Teachers regularly share guidance with families on how to support reading, and parents are always welcome to seek further advice from their child’s class teacher.

Teachers share their own love of reading at every opportunity through class reads, inviting families to The Big Reads and promoting the annual book fair. Every class enjoys daily story time, during which a book chosen by the children is shared together. Reading corners in classrooms are well-stocked library provides a welcoming space for pupils. Our enthusiastic librarians ensure the library is open at break and lunchtimes so there is always a quiet place to enjoy a book. Throughout the year, we also host Story Time in the Library, where adults read aloud to any eager listeners. Learning Champions for reading offer valuable peer support, with older pupils helping younger children by listening to them read, talking about books, and sharing recommendations. We are also fortunate to have Blodyn, our much-loved reading dog, visit us each week to hear a variety of children read.

Writing

We see writing as an integral part of the whole curriculum and are always looking for real-life writing opportunities to inspire the children and get them putting pen to paper. Activities, including first hand experiences, in all areas of the curriculum provide starting points for a wide variety of writing. In the Early Years Foundation Stage the child’s first marks on paper (emergent writing) are valued as an essential stage in the development of writing. Children explore and extend their writing skills through a variety of role play situations (e.g. writing signs and labels for the garden centre/invitations to a teddy bear’s picnic). They have free access to writing areas.

The KS1 Playground is the home of the school's Writing Shed which is a little den of activity for the children to freely choose writing experiences to encourage a love of English. The children in Reception and Year 1 use this as part of their continuous provision with access for the whole key stage at break and lunchtimes as they require it. 

As children become more confident in their writing ability,  and they progress through the school, we encourage them to be aware of their audience through highlighting the purpose of writing and providing opportunities for children’s work to be published. We allow time for children to evaluate their work and share it with others, encouraging constructive criticism and comment. Carefully planned for writing opportunities are provided in English lessons and across the curriculum. These are mostly linked to rich texts studied in each year group during lessons but also to other areas of study, such as history and science, where children can apply the skills they have learnt in lessons. 

Every year group has a writing Wish List which is aspirational and builds upon the objectives in the National Curriculum, alongside the elements of writing that we see as key here at Pirbright. Children can refer to these Wish Lists when editing their work to ensure they are being challenged to be the best writers they can. 

Each term we celebrate children's achievements in writing by publishing a Star Writer from each class on the school website. 

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar

Fundamental to good writing, is confidence in spelling, punctuation and grammar which has been high on the school’s agenda for a number of years now. Beginning with our youngest children, we start teaching the building blocks for word building, sentence construction and text organisation to ensure writing is of the highest quality. We take a multi-sensory approach to spelling as children learn to spell using different strategies. Whilst we recognise the teaching of a systematic synthetic approach to phonics is successful with most children, we also recognise the need to use different strategies with children who do not learn spellings phonetically.  We therefore encourage the development of visual memory, kinaesthetic methods, picture cues as well as focusing on the structure of words and letter patterns. 

Children in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 receive weekly spelling lists to take home and learn. In Year 1 these are aligned to the Little Wandle teaching, enabling children to consolidate the sounds they are currently being taught. After completing the Little Wandle Phonics reading scheme, Year 2 students are introduced to spelling rules through the "Bridge to Spelling" unit, where they are taught how to 'think about spelling'. Over the course of five weeks, they complete the alphabetic code and learn the underpinning concepts of spelling. Once this learning is secure, children are ready to move on to the Little Wandle Year 2 Spelling units. These Spelling units follow the familiar structure of Little Wandle phonics lessons, supporting children to make links to their phonics learning. Little Wandle Spelling teaches children to consider etymology, morphology and grammar when spelling new words. The programme provides full coverage of National Curriculum spelling requirements. From Year 2 onwards, we follow the Spelling Shed scheme, teaching the morphology, etymology and spelling rule each week before encouraging children to practise their spellings using a range of strategies including through the spelling games. Children are encouraged to use their weekly words in their English book and when tested, the words are always put into context. Children who struggle to access the class spellings are given individual lists and tested on an individual basis to ensure they are working at an appropriate level.

Punctuation and grammar is taught through English lessons and ensures that children are seeing the different rules of language in context where they can then apply this to their daily writing. Becoming literate with the language of grammar is just as important and allows for dialogue in the classroom to be of the highest quality. Children are encouraged to use technical vocabulary to explain words and sentences; this allows them to identify the rules of grammar in order to make choices about which techniques to employ in their independent writing.

Speaking & Listening

We value the oral language which children bring with them to school and we foster and develop this by encouraging them to speak confidently and teaching them to actively listen to others. Speaking and listening activities, including drama, are planned for specifically within each English unit as well as within other subjects across the curriculum.

Handwriting

During the Early Years Foundation Stage and Year 1 children are taught the correct letter formation as they learn the letters through their phonics lessons and through specific handwriting sessions. During Year 2, when the child is ready and shows that they can form letters correctly, they are introduced to cursive handwriting. Specific handwriting sessions continue throughout KS2, allowing children to focus on the correct joins whilst building fluency and stamina in handwriting. As children become confident with handwriting skills they are encouraged to develop their own particular style.