Phonics and Reading

Phonic sessions take place everyday for 20 minutes in EYFS and 30 minutes in Key Stage 1. Phonics is taught in ability set groups and follows the Phonics Phases as appropriate to the grouping and year group. The aim is that children will be capable of reading fluently and spelling accurately by the end of year 2. In Key Stage 2 phonics continues to be taught implicitly through the daily spelling activity, some children who continue with the phonics phases will work in small group interventions.  The school follows the letters and sounds programme.

We have aligned our teaching of reading with the teaching of reading using Jane Considine's 'Hooked on Books' approach.

Children take part in Book Talk whole class guided reading sessions, 4 times a week, where they read aloud with a group of their peers using different reading organisations. Children use the 'Reading Rainbow' to read and respond to texts through different lenses within 3 different zones of reading: The Fantastics, The Stylistics and The Analytics. Book Talk is key to developing oracy skills. Children collaborate in groups using sentence stems and high utility words to develop a Book Talk response. Once a week the children complete an independent reading response activity.

Daily Book Talk guided reading sessions are supplemented by books from the OXford Reading Tree and Rigby, amongst others.  All books are book banded, with  a great emphasis is placed on ensuring the children in the early stages of reading have booked which let them apply their phonics acquisition.  

In the EYFS the children spend the first for weeks of the academy taking home picture books to give a focus of speaking and listening and attention.  From October, the children are given reading books that match their phonics acquisition.  Whole class reading books are carefully selected in EYFS,  Books are chosen for a variety of reasons including: repetition of phrases/sentences as well as books which focus PSED elements of the foundation stage curriculum.

Maths

In advance of any maths unit being taught, all of the children complete a pre test on the unit they are about to study. The results are analysed and any child who does not have the appropriate knowledge of the unit is placed into a pre teach group.  The pre teach groups, are an intervention designed to allow support staff to work with the selected children, to ensure they have an improved the knowledge and skills base to access the quality first teaching. 

Classroom maths is taught using the Same Day Intervention Method. The majority of maths lessons will be delivered in 2 parts. Part 1 will be a formative based teaching session. Children will be taught in whole class/mixed ability pairs or mixed ability groups, based on an ‘I do, you do’ structure. Activities may be practical using representation and will be mainly completed on whiteboards. At any point the teacher will direct individuals/small groups or even the whole class to complete 6 varied fluency questions. Children who have excelled in pre assessment may even start this work without any teacher input. The fluency questions will then be self-marked, giving the children the ownership of their learning, under guidance from the teacher the children will choose where to take there learning next in Part 2.

There will be three choice available.

• Hot (Same Day Intervention SDI) the teacher/support staff will model/guide the work to those children.

• Spicy (fluency variation) Children will complete further varied fluency questions to hone in on the skills acquired.

• Super Spicy (Reasoning/Problem Solving) This allows the children to apply their knowledge and skills acquisition.

Maths Knowledge Organisers
EYFS
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5/6