At Hurst Green Church of England Primary School and Nursery, we recognise the importance of equipping our children with English skills to prepare them for the future and we aspire for them to achieve excellence in reading and writing. We encourage our children to become active listeners who are confident, and have the skills, to speak aloud in a variety of contexts. As a school, we are passionate about books and together we promote a lifelong love of reading; valuing 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. This in turn supports our children to become confident writers and ‘allows them to access the full curriculum on offer’ (Ofsted, 2019).We offer a language-rich learning environment and use carefully selected texts across a range of genres, immersing our children in quality literature at every opportunity: ‘The most important gift a school can give a child is the power to read.’ (Ofsted, Reading by six. How the best schools do it, 2009).

Phonics and Early Reading

At Hurst Green Primary School and Nursery 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 validated, systematic synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching Little Wandle Foundations in our Nursery and then, from Reception, we 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.

Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 have structured phonics lessons each day.  We assess every child regularly to see which phase they should be taught. Any child in Reception and Year 1 who needs additional practice has Daily Keep-up support and is taught by a fully trained adult. In Year 2, once the Phase 5 review is secure, we teach the Bridge to spelling before moving to the Spelling units. Any children with larger gaps in their phonic knowledge than their peers have daily phonics teaching and follow the Rapid Catch-up programme.

In Reception, Year 1 and 2 we teach reading practice sessions three times a week covering the following skills:

• • decoding: teaching children to use phonic knowledge to read words
  • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
  • comprehension: using dialogic talk to help children to understand the text

We teach reading to children in Year 2 and above who have exited the core programme using Little Wandle Fluency using the following structure:

• • A pre-read to practise reading words and to support vocabulary
  • Children read aloud for ten minutes and the teacher ‘taps in’ to hear every child read
  • Focused teaching of prosody, repeated reading and comprehension through discussion.

Home reading

• The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared.
• Reading for Pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.
• For more information use the following resources :
• Everybody read!
• Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources

For more information on how to support your child please click on the image below.

Please see our Early Reading and Phonics Policy below for further information.

Phonics and Early Reading Policy 2024-25

Reading for Pleasure (RfP)

‘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 highly value RfP and work hard as a school to grow our RfP pedagogy.

• We read aloud to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including those that reflect the children at Hurst Green Primary School and Nursery 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 choose from our range of carefully chosen books to take home and share with an adult. We keep a record of the children’s choices, so we get to know them as readers.
• As children progress through school, we take time to get to know them as readers and ensure that we engage in meaningful conversations about the books that they have read. By doing this we can recommend authors and genres of books to expand their interests.
• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of RfP events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events, etc.).

In the last three years our reading results have been significantly higher than the National Average:

Writing

At Hurst Green Primary School and Nursery we use Pie Corbett’s Talk for Writing.

What is Talk for Writing?
Talk for Writing is an engaging teaching framework based on the principles of how children learn. It enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own version.

The key to raising attainment
Talk for Writing, developed by Pie Corbett, is powerful because it is based on the principles of how people learn. The movement from imitation to innovation to independent application can be adapted to suit the needs of learners of any stage.

‘Talk for Writing has had an outstanding impact on schools. Typically, schools have found that children initially double their rate of progress and, where the approach has been applied systematically across a setting, many schools have moved from dire results to outstanding success. Schools already performing well have not only increased attainment, but also enjoyment and engagement.’ (Talk for Writing)

The Talk for Writing Stages:

1. Baseline assessment and planning – the ‘cold’ task
Teaching is focused by initial assessment. Teachers use what is known as a ‘cold’ task or a ‘have a go’ task. An interesting and rich starting point provides the stimulus and content. The aim of this is to see what the children can do independently at the start of a unit, drawing on their prior learning. Assessment of their writing helps the teacher work out what to teach the whole class, different groups and adapt the model text and plan. Targets can then be set for individuals. By the end of the unit, pupils complete a ‘hot’ task or a ‘show us what you know’ task which is an independent task on a similar type of writing with an interesting stimulus. Progress should be evident which encourages pupils and helps schools track the impact of teaching

2. The imitation stage
The teaching begins with some sort of creative ‘hook’ which engages the pupils, often with a sense of enjoyment, audience and purpose. Writing challenges, such as informing Dr Who about how the Tardis works or producing leaflets for younger children about healthy eating, provide a sense of purpose. The model text is pitched well above the pupils’ level and has built into it the underlying, transferable structures and language patterns that students will need when they are writing. This is learned using a ‘text map’ and actions to strengthen memory and help students internalise the text. Activities such as drama are used to deepen understanding of the text.

Once students can ‘talk like the text’, the model, and other examples, are then read for vocabulary and comprehension, before being analysed for the basic text (boxing up) and language patterns, as well as writing techniques or toolkits. All of this first phase is underpinned by rehearsing key spellings and grammatical patterns. Short-burst writing is used to practise key focuses such as description, persuasion or scientific explanation.

3. The innovation stage
Once students are familiar with the model text, then the teacher leads them into creating their own versions. A new subject is presented and the teacher leads students through planning. With younger pupils, this is based on changing the basic map and retelling new versions. Older students use boxed-up planners and the teacher demonstrates how to create simple plans and orally develop ideas prior to writing. Ideas may need to be generated and organised or information researched and added to a planner. Shared and guided writing is then used to stage writing over a number of days so that students are writing texts bit by bit, concentrating on bringing all the elements together, writing effectively and accurately. Feedback is given during the lessons, as well as using some form of visualiser on a daily basis, so that students can be taught how to improve their writing, make it more accurate, until they can increasingly edit in pairs or on their own.

4. Independent application and invention – the ‘hot’ task
Eventually, students move on to the third phase, which is when they apply independently what has been taught and practised. Before this happens, the teacher may decide to give further input and rehearsal. Students are guided through planning, drafting and revising their work independently. It is essential to provide a rich starting point that taps into what students know and what matters so that their writing is purposeful. Writing may be staged over a number of days and there may be time for several independent pieces to be written. With non-fiction, students should apply what they have been taught across the curriculum. The final piece is used as the ‘hot’ task, which clearly shows progress across the unit.

It is important that at the innovation and independent application stages, the writing becomes increasingly independent of the original model rather than a pale copy. Whilst four-year-olds may only make a few simple changes, older students should be adding, embellishing, altering and manipulating the original structure. From Key Stage 2 onwards, almost all children will be using the text structure and writing tools to write, drawing on the model, their wider reading and experience so that they are writing independently at a high level. This has to be modelled in shared writing.

The aim of Talk for Writing is to develop imaginative, creative and effective writers. In the same way, the aim of Talk for Reading is to grow confident, critical and appreciative readers. No student can be said to really be a reader until they make their own choices about what to read and begin to develop a taste. In the same vein, children are not really writers until they decide what they want to write and have opportunities to create their own writing tasks and write about their interests and lives creating stories, poems and informative writing for themselves.

For this reason, we plan ‘invention’ units which often sit between taught units. These ‘invention’ units are when students have time for their own writing. Teachers may provide a stimulus such as a film clip, interesting object, drama, wordless picture book, work of art, music, visitor or visit as a starting point but the students decide what and how to write. This is truly independent writing. In the early years, children should be playing at making up stories daily, acting stories out and at least once a week be led by the teacher through making up class stories for future sharing.

5. Final assessment – building on progression
The quality of the model texts is crucial to progress. The models should be short and provide excellent examples of the key linguistic features being focused on, and they should increase in difficulty. With younger children, the imitation stage will take longer, as the children need to establish the language patterns that will underpin their learning; this is so that they can see how to innovate on a text and write their own version independently. As they get older, more sophisticated ways of imitating text and a greater range of models can be used, and there will be a greater emphasis on ensuring that the innovation stage helps the pupils to move away from the initial model, so that they become increasingly skilled as independent writers.

When the children are first taught a text type, they will co-construct the toolkit to help them understand the ingredients to consider. As they progress up the school, these toolkits should travel with them so that, year-on-year, they are refined as the pupils develop their skills. Over time, they should internalise these toolkits so they select appropriate features automatically and no longer need a visual support to scaffold their writing.

Talk for Writing Long Term Plan

Spelling

In Key Stage 2, we use ‘No Nonsense Spelling’ to teach spelling.

What is the No Nonsense Spelling Programme?
The No Nonsense Spelling Programme is a comprehensive yet accessible progression in the teaching of spelling.
The focus of the programme is on the teaching of spelling, which embraces knowledge of spelling conventions – patterns and rules; but integral to the teaching is the opportunity to promote the learning of spellings, including statutory words, common exceptions and personal spellings.
The programme
• delivers a manageable tool for meeting the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum
• has a clear progression through blocks of teaching units across the year
• comprehensively explains how to teach spelling effectively.

How No Nonsense Spelling is organised
The programme consists of the following elements:
• The requirements of the National Curriculum, which have been organised into strands and
then broken down into termly overviews.
• Termly overviews that have been mapped across weeks as half termly plans. These follow a
model of five spelling sessions across two weeks.
• Daily lesson plans for each session, with Supporting Resources, including word lists and
guidance on conventions.

Spelling Strategies

Handwriting

We use the ‘Letterjoin’ Programme to teach handwriting. Letter-join is a whole school handwriting scheme offering a combination of traditional and digital resources.
These include classroom presentations, handwriting activities, online games and worksheets. We use a cursive font in KS1 and KS2.