Spoken Language

Pupils should be taught to:

• listen and respond appropriately to adults and their peers
• ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge
• use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary
• articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
• give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings
• maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments
• use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas
• speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English
• participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role play/improvisations and debates
• gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s)
• consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others
• select and use appropriate registers for effective communication

Phonics and Reading

Developing best practice in systematic synthetic phonics teaching from school-based early year’s provision to the end of Key Stage 1, and as the primary reading strategy throughout the school. This includes:

• Implementation of Bug Club phonics scheme as a single systematic synthetic phonics programme;
• supporting the effective use of decodable books in the early stages of learning to read, as a way of establishing phonic decoding;
• supporting effective practice in formative assessment in relation to phonics/early reading, in line with National Curriculum guidelines.

Moving through to create confident readers, with a love of not only gaining knowledge but also reading for enjoyment.

• Supporting whole school reading approaches in line with reading comprehension progression;
• reading to or with children at least once a day and encouraging reading at home; 
• ensuring that reading and language is embedded across the curriculum and is taught in a purposeful way;
• children are confident presenting their work and using different types of texts to achieve their goals;
• developing teachers’ knowledge of appropriate children’s literature.

For further information regarding the teaching of Phonics please contact Ms Morgan or Mrs Cobbold, our Phonics and Reading Leads, by emailing info@northdowns.surrey.sch.uk