Category: Curriculum

We teach early reading and phonics through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. View our launch presentation for parents below.

More information for parents about our phonics programme is available on the Little Wandle website. The resources on this page will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home. Find our full Reception and Year 1 teaching programme overview here to see what your child will learn and when.

Intent

Phonics (reading and spelling)

At St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Comprehension

At St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.

Implementation

Foundations for phonics in Nursery

• We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:
  • sharing high-quality stories and poems
  • learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
  • activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
  • attention to high-quality language.
• We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

• We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
• 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:
  • Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
  • Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

• Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace. 
• If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

• We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
  • are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
  • use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’
  • are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
• Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
  • decoding
  • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
  • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
• In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
• In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Home reading

• The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family. All of our families have access to our eBook library.
• Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.
• We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

Additional reading support for vulnerable children

• Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

• Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
• Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
• Lesson templates, Prompt cards and How to videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
• The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

• We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at St Adrian’s Catholic Primary School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.
• In Nursery/Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
• Children from Nursery/Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.
• As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments and keep a list of the books/authors that they have read.
• Each class visits the local library every half term.
• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. It must be booked via the school booking system. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc).

Impact

Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

• Assessment for learning is used:
  • daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
  • weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.
• Summative assessment is used:
  • every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
  • by SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.
• The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised placement assessment is used:
  • with any child new to the school to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan provide appropriate extra teaching.

Statutory assessment

• Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for catch-up

• Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through:
  •  their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment
  • the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds placement assessment
  • the appropriate half-termly assessments.

The education for children at St. Adrian’s is based on the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ framework. These are government guidelines that set out the curriculum delivered to each child, from birth until the end of the Reception class. The framework is organised into the seven areas of learning.  Our first priority is to ensure children are happy, settled and ready to learn.

You can access the Early Years Foundation Stage framework here.

In the stimulating and caring environment at St. Adrian’s, children learn to feel confident and able to learn through enjoyable and challenging play.

Play is a very important part of growing up. From birth to five years old, children grow, develop and learn rapidly. They choose their friends and develop their own preferred ways of learning. This involves finding out the answers to questions, developing the confidence to ‘have a go’ and learning new skills, as well as consolidating and extending what has already been discovered.

When children start school, they have already learnt a lot from parents at home and in pre-school. We want to build on what children already know and can do, continually taking them to the next stage.

Children learn many new skills from being involved in purposeful, structured play, both indoors and outdoors. Whilst in the Foundation Stage, children spend periods of time involved in activities planned by an adult and periods of time doing activities they have chosen themselves.

This mixture of activities enables children to build up important relationships with other children. It also allows them to use their own initiative and develop problem-solving skills, vital as they go further up the school.

The Learning Environment 

The indoor and outdoor ‘classrooms’ are arranged to give children plenty of space to move around, to work individually and in groups, large and small. 

Resources are well organised and labelled so that children know where to find what they need and can be independent in their play (and tidying!). This means that adults can spend more time joining in with children’s learning. 

Through this supported play, children can explore, develop and use their curiosity and imagination to help them make sense of the world in a secure environment. They learn skills, build up ideas and concepts, think creatively and imaginatively and communicate with others as they investigate and solve problems. 

Let’s find out more about the areas of learning

Each of the following learning areas have early learning goals. Individualized learning and care enhances the development of every child to help them work towards the early learning goals and give them the best possible start in life. 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Children’s personal, social and emotional development is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Nursery and Reception classes provide a secure environment for children to develop as confident individuals. Opportunities are provided for each child to become a valued member of a group and community so that confidence and self-esteem are promoted. Children are encouraged to work and play cooperatively and establish effective relationships with other children and adults. They have many opportunities to demonstrate their independence and seek help where needed, developing an understanding of what is right, what is wrong and why. The other six areas of learning are underpinned by secure personal, social and emotional development.

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Communication and Language

We provide a stimulating environment in which the children can listen and respond to stories, non-fiction writing, songs, nursery rhymes and poems and take part in role-play with confidence. The children love to discuss the text, retell stories through small world activities and make up stories of their own. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the school day in a language rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners help to build children’s language acquisition.

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Physical Development 

Physical development in the Foundation Stage at St. Adrian’s is about providing opportunities for children to develop and improve their skills of coordination, control, manipulation and movement both indoors and outside. Physical activity is vital in children’s all around development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross (large body muscles) and fine (small muscles in hands and fingers) motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood. The development of a child’s strength, coordination and positional awareness is developed through movement opportunities with both objects and adults. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well being. Fine motor control and precision helps with eye-hand coordination, which is later linked to early literacy and writing.

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Literacy

Comprehension 

Language comprehension (both reading and writing) develops when adults at St. Adrian’s talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together. 

The children will learn comprehension skills alongside learning to decode the words on the page. This will help them to make sense of what the words say and what the text means. These skills help children become keen and confident readers. 

Word Reading

The children will learn about rhyming words, listen for sounds in words, recognise letters and use these to blend words. They will be introduced to letters through the Letters and Sounds programme and develop a love for books from the school reading scheme as well as from the class library. Children learn to enjoy words and language. They love to sing rhymes and share books with others.

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Writing

Children are encouraged to make marks and use pictures, symbols, letters and familiar words to communicate meaning. They experience a wide range of writing tools and are encouraged to hold them carefully and form letters correctly.

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Children develop good small muscle manipulative skills in their hands and fingers before they can form letters.

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Mathematics

Through practical activities the children are encouraged to sort and match objects by colour, size and shape, and to recognise, recreate and devise their own patterns. They experience counting games and activities, number rhymes, songs and stories. They learn to use mathematical understanding to solve practical problems. Our curriculum also includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics. We believe that it is very important for the children to develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, and spot connections. 

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Understanding the World

In this area of learning, children are developing the crucial skills of knowledge and understanding that help them to make sense of their physical world and their community.   They are encouraged to solve problems and find out about the world around them through using their five senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing.  This forms the foundation for later work in science, design and technology, history, geography, and computing. 

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Expressive Arts and Design

Creativity is fundamental to successful learning.  Being creative enables children to make connections between one area of learning and another and so extend their understanding. We provide a huge range of practical activities that promote creativity through art, music, dance, role-play and imaginative play. The frequency, repetition and depth of children’s experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond and observe. 

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Religious education 

In the foundation stage religious education drives the whole curriculum. Through engaging, practical, integrated activities, children can learn more about themselves, other people and the world around them and develop their religious knowledge, skills and understanding. Religious education plays an active contribution to the areas of learning outlined in the curriculum for the foundation phase but has a particular and important contribution to personal and social development, communication and language, literacy, understanding of the world, art and design. 

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Characteristics of Learning

There are three main characteristics of learning outlined in the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.

• Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things and “have a go”.
• Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy their achievements.
• Creativity and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas and make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

At St. Adrian’s we focus on learning behaviours and developing the language of ‘how I am learning’.  Our learning super heroes help us talk about how we are learning:

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French is introduced in Year 3 and studied weekly with a French specialist teacher until the children leave at the end of Year 6.

At St Adrian’s we endeavor to make lessons stimulating and enjoyable and build confidence through lots of praise. We aim to foster an interest in language learning by introducing children to the French language in an inclusive way that is accessible to all pupils.

We aim to develop children’s confidence in speaking in the target language by encouraging them to join in songs, rhymes stories and games, which enable them to practise the language in an enjoyable and non-threatening way.

We strive to help our pupils develop their awareness of cultural similarities and differences. We seek to lay the foundations for future language study by our pupils whilst supporting linguistic understanding of their first language.

Key documents

St-Adrian’s-long-term-plan-for-MFL

National Curriculum for MFL

Topics at a glance

*Coming soon

Recommended resources  for practising French at home

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/french

For mobiles and tablets: Mindsnacks French – fun interactive French games on a downloadable app.

The Science curriculum at St Adrian’s will make provision for:

• pupils’ natural curiosity to be encouraged and nourished so as to foster a sense of awe and wonder at the limitless beauty and diversity of the world and beyond;
• Stimuli  which challenge the pupils to ask questions;
• engagement and relevance to the pupils;
• opportunities for children to hone the generic skills of collaboration, independence, research, and reflection;
• pupils to regularly employ the key scientific skills of making predictions; planning experiments; making observations; taking measurements, presenting data and drawing conclusions based on the results;  discussing the limitations of their empirical findings; and conduct experiments with due regard for safety;
• the acquisition of the scientific knowledge and skills stipulated in the National Curriculum;
• opportunities to refine and build upon existing skills and experiences;
• equipping the pupils for secondary school education and setting them on the road for life-long learning;
• empowering the pupils to make a positive difference to their community and to society in general.

Key documents

National Curriculum – Key Stage 1 and 2

Whole School Skills Map

Topics at a glance

Relationships Education has become statutory for all primary schools from the summer term of 2021. For all schools, Sex Education as part of the Science curriculum remains the same.

Key documents

Parent portal to the school’s scheme of work

Statutory government document

At St Adrian’s we promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of Law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

We are committed to serving our community and local area and in so doing, we reinforce these British values regularly in the following ways:

Democracy:
Pupils have their voices heard through our School Council, Pupil Committees and Pupil Voice interviews. The process of pupil voting for the School Council contributes to the elections of Head boy, Head girl and School Council representatives.

British Value in action: We help to make decisions that improve our school

The Rule of Law:
The importance of laws and rules are consistently reinforced in the classroom, as well as through school assemblies. Pupils are taught to understand the need for laws, the responsibilities that this involves and the consequences when laws are broken.

British Value in action: We understand that rules help us to be safe and happy

Individual Liberty:
Pupils are encouraged to be independent learners, constantly making choices, within a safe and supportive environment. Pupils are encouraged to understand their personal freedoms and are taught how to use these rights to best effect. All pupils are keen to support charities, whether local, national or global. They are taught consideration for others through our Religious Education curriculum and PSHE lessons.

British Value in action: We understand that freedom comes with responsibility

Mutual Respect:
Our school’s ethos and our behaviour policy are based on Gospel values, with the important commandment being, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’. Assemblies constantly promote respect for others and the importance of good manners. All pupils are taught the importance of self-respect, honest and open communication with others and fair play. Pupils work collaboratively and value others’ opinions.value others’ opinions.

British Value in action: We have respect for ourselves and for others

Tolerance of those of Different Faiths and Beliefs:
As a Catholic worshipping community, pupils are reminded of their place in a culturally diverse society. This is achieved through our Religious Education curriculum and the spiritual life of the school. Assemblies and class work promote the diversity of society and the right for each person to be respected and valued equally regardless of ability, gender, faith, heritage or race. Members of different faiths or religions both within and outside the school community are invited to contribute through sharing their knowledge and to enhance learning within assemblies and in class.

British Value in action: We understand and accept that our friends may have different beliefs and opinions

At St Adrian’s we teach mathematics through a maths mastery approach. We strive to develop a deep, long-term and adaptable understanding of maths for all pupils. By teaching children to master maths, they become mathematically fluent and are able to solve non-routine problems without having to memorise procedures.

Teachers identify the key learning for each class and plan to secure these.  Learning sequences are developmental and, depending on the concept, a good proportion of time will be spent securing key learning. Teachers use their judgement about when it is the right time to move on.  This approach enables the large majority of pupils to progress through the curriculum content at broadly the same pace.

Key documents

St Adrian’s Long Term Plan for Mathematics

Progression resources

• Ready-to-progress criteria – published by the DfE in August 2020 and used in conjunction with Maths – No Problem!
• For further information on the core concepts underpinning our mathematics curriculum and to explore progression within these, view these Parent Videos and visit the Maths – No Problem Website.

National Curriculum link

Topics at a glance 

We use Maths — No Problem! textbooks and workbooks, which have been written to meet the requirements of the 2014 English national curriculum. The MNP Primary Series was assessed by the DfE’s expert panel, which judged that it met the core criteria for a high-quality textbook to support teaching for mastery.