Curriculum
At Albert Bradbeer we follow the National Curriculum. For details, see our statement below:
Curriculum Statement - 2019/20
You can find out more about what the children are learning through the year be reading the newsletters and plans on our year group pages.
The Teaching of Reading
Our dream, at Albert Bradbeer, is for all of our children to develop a love of books and reading! Reading is a huge part of school life as we believe it is central to developing children’s understanding in all areas of the curriculum. We are fortunate enough to have two exciting libraries in our school and the children can use these at lunch times. We also have book sheds in our playgrounds so that the children can sit and enjoy a book at break times. Across the school, there are four lending libraries where children and adults can take a book to share at home. Book swaps and book fairs are termly events so that our community have access to as many books as possible. We have recently subscribed to Oxford Reading Buddy. This is an online reading platform where our children have access to electronic texts at home. Each class spends at least 15 minutes a day sharing a book. Most of these books come from our Reading Canons; a list of high quality texts which we feel that our children should have an opportunity to read and enjoy.
The youngest children in our school share books daily and discuss the stories that they have read. From Reception to Year 2 we teach Guided Reading with a carousel of activities which include work on vocabulary and comprehension activities. The children also read with adults and have time to develop a love of reading. In KS2, we teach reading through a Whole Class approach. The children focus on a text or extract; analyse the vocabulary; carry out further research into the text; use Answer, Prove, Explain (APE) to answer comprehension skills; and really develop their understanding of the text. Our children really enjoy their reading lessons! Our goal for this year is to get our parents to enjoy reading as much as our children.
The Teaching of Phonics
At Albert Bradbeer Primary we teach phonics using 'Read Write Inc (RWI)'. Read, Write, Inc. Phonics is an inclusive literacy programme for all children learning to read. It teaches synthetic phonics. Children learn the 44 common sounds in the English language and how to blend them to read and spell. Reading is the key that unlocks the whole curriculum so the ability to efficiently decode is essential. Our two main aims of our phonics sessions are to:
- decode texts effortlessly so all their resources can be used to comprehend what they read.
- spell effortlessly so that all their resources can be directed towards composing their writing.
Our approach to teaching phonics is based on the 5 P’s:
Praise – Children learn quickly in a positive climate.
Pace – Good pace is essential to the lesson.
Purpose – Every part of the lesson has a specific purpose.
Passion – This is a very prescriptive programme. It is the energy, enthusiasm and passion that teachers put into the lesson that bring the teaching and learning to life!
Participation – A strong feature of R.W.I. lessons is partner work and the partners ‘teaching’ each other (based on research which states that we learn 70% of what we talk about with our partner and 90% of what we teach).
Our children begin the RWI programme in Nursery. Children from Reception to Year 2 have a daily phonics lesson and some children in KS2 have a phonics intervention if their phonic knowledge is not yet secure.
If you would like to learn more about RWI, please have a look at this website:
https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/find-out-more/parents/
or come and speak to your child’s class teacher.
