Writing

We are proud to be a partner school of 'I Am A Clever Writer' (IAACW). The writing produced by the children in each class is linked to various themes or topics that have been studied in class. It could be linked to a unit as a whole, such as Instructions or the piece of writing could be the product of imaginative discussions based on their theme or topic for the half term.

Staff also ensure that children use their basic skills for writing throughout all subjects including Science, R.E. and all other subjects.

This fosters a deeper understanding of the topic and exposes pupils to different genres of writing, encouraging them to write creatively and imaginatively. By doing this, we can encourage pupils to become excited about writing for a range of purposes and audiences.

As always, expectations of the children remain high throughout the school and the Nelson cursive handwriting style is taught from EYFS.

Adaptive teaching and Special Educational Needs (SEN) 

Adaptive teaching strategies are used to ensure that all pupils can access learning and remain in the classroom as much as possible. Lessons are carefully planned and scaffolded to ensure that all pupils will be able to achieve the shared learning objective at their own level. Children with the greatest need, for example those with Special Educational Needs (SEN), will be given more in lesson support. This will include: more quality teaching and learning time with the class teacher; activities being broken down into smaller, more manageable steps; a higher level of personalised scaffolding in activities. It is our goal for all learners to be able to achieve the learning objective successfully in every lesson. Through adaptive teaching we aim to foster independence, resilience and self-confidence for every child. 

Below are the writing overviews for each year group. 

Reading

Reading for pleasure is a priority throughout our school and along with the fantastic support at home, from parents and carers, we are dedicated to encouraging our pupils to become excited about selecting their own books based on their preferences and interests, to become inquisitive and ask questions about what they read, to enter into wonderful imaginative worlds and to use reading to realise that the world around them is full of new, exciting and endless possibilities.

All pupils at St. Gregory’s have access to high-quality, newer texts in their class libraries and a selection of fiction and non-fiction texts in the school library which they are exposed to a wide and diverse range of books, authors and styles of texts.

Here are some examples of texts suitable for different year groups which cover a range of genres and text types to broaden your child’s imagination, deepen their understanding and enjoy reading for pleasure:

Reading Superheroes

Our Reading Superheroes are discussed with the children and used to support our teaching of Reading. Each Superhero links to one of the Reading Domains that is based on a skill from the Reading Curriculum.

When reading, the children should not only be decoding the words on the page, but they also naturally learn to question, infer, predict, summarise and retrieve information from what they read.

Reading underpins the whole curriculum and even though they are practising these skills in class, below are some example questions that you could ask your children when reading based on our Reading Superheroes alongside more information:

Whole Class Reading is taught through our Reading Superheroes at St Gregory’s which focuses strongly on modelling and teaching the essential skills children require in order to become successful readers and have a solid comprehension of the texts that they are reading.

These skills are taught through a variety of high-quality extracts and texts, where the children explore the different domains including characters, settings, language and authorial intent.

Often, texts can be linked to the year group’s theme such as WW2 in History, Plants in Science or the Rainforest in Geography.

Every year group have selected Reading Superhero domains to focus on which may change weekly or half termly. You can follow these Long-Term Reading Plans through clicking on the links below:

Phonics and Spellings

In Early Years and Key Stage 1, we use the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonics scheme as a framework for teaching phonics and early reading and writing.

Daily phonics sessions are taught through a variety of activities, texts and groups of children are targeted for each phase of the phonics scheme. Children are also taught spelling patterns and strings appropriate for their year group throughout the school. These are also taught through games and activities in English lessons and phonics lessons.

Below is a document with websites with many interactive games and activities to support your child with their spellings and phonics practice: