A Bunbury Writer and Reader

Bunbury ‘readers and writers’ let their light shine brightly.....

English is led by the CORE English team.

Our English Co-ordinator at Bunbury is Mrs McShane

At the heart of everything is a personalised approach to each unique individual as part of our Christian Community. The strong family ethos ensures that all children and staff feel valued, respected and grow in self-confidence. Enthusiastic and caring staff with high expectations, demonstrate care of the whole child. Through God’s guidance we encourage each and every child to let their light shine.

Article 29: Children’s education should develop each child’s personality, talents and abilities to the fullest. It should encourage children to respect others, human rights and their own and other cultures. It should also help them learn to live peacefully, protect the environment and respect other people.

The curriculum at Bunbury is constructed in order to provide systems of learning and lived experiences that enable the pupils at our school to develop and grow as learners, empowering all children to fulfil the school’s motto: ‘Let Your Light Shine’. The curriculum is focused on growing the whole person, through a broad range of subjects and wider opportunities. Its intent is to empower pupils in learning; to facilitate efficient acquisition of knowledge and to provide clear steps for progression and to develop a rich cultural capital. Through high-quality texts, resources and experiences, it aims to inspire our pupils to develop inquiring minds and to have a world view that is full of hope, with a knowledge of the love of Jesus. The curriculum meets the needs of all our children through a loving, nurturing environment, rich in social, spiritual and moral learning. It equips our pupils with the tools that will enable them to succeed in academic, professional and personal contexts throughout their lives

Writing

We follow a Mastery approach to English through the programme ‘Pathways to Write.’ Units of work are delivered using high quality texts and children in all year groups are given varied opportunities for writing.

Skills are built up through repetition within the units, and children apply these skills in the writing activities provided.  Many opportunities for widening children’s vocabulary are given through the Pathways to Write approach and this builds on the extensive work we do in school to provide our children with a rich and varied vocabulary.  

You will find the end of year expectations for writing, reading and spoken language for each of our year groups in the attached documents. For further detail on the skills that your children are learning on a termly basis, please contact your class teacher.

We develop handwriting using a progressive pre-cursive font called 'Nelson FK' this supports pupils to join letters from an early age. Our cursive handwriting starts from KS1 so that children develop a pre-cursive style ready for formal joining. Our English books contain handwriting lines to support the children to form their letters correctly. Handwriting is evaluated when children complete work for their writing celebration books. 

Reading

We believe that reading should be a source of pleasure and that it is the key to learning.  We aim to involve parents/carers in children’s reading as much as possible.  Children read to a range of adults, either individually or in groups, on a daily basis.

Their individual Reading Record books are an important source of communication between home and school, especially in the early years.  We use a structured reading scheme alongside a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books.

Phonics is taught using the ReadWrite Inc. programme.  We use a combination of whole class teaching and group or individual work. Please see the separate Read Write Inc. page for more detail.

Reading comprehension is taught from years 2 to 6 using the Pathways to Read scheme. This is a systematic approach to the teaching of the reading skills outlined in the National Curriculum using a range of engaging texts. It consists of a whole class lesson, followed by small grouped reading lessons which provide children with the opportunity to master a key reading skill, then a follow on task which allows them to evidence the skills they have mastered independently.

Useful websites:

Tips for reading with your child | BookTrust

https://www.readingrockets.org/article/reading-your-child

http://wordsforlife.literacytrust.org.uk/

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

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm 

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