At Bushey Education Primary Federation, we believe that English skills are fundamental for the children to be able to access all areas of the National Curriculum. On a daily basis, the children learn and consolidate these skills through a variety of activities including Guided Reading, shared/guided writing, Handwriting, Phonics and English lessons.

Phonics and Spelling

We believe that it is essential that children are exposed to phonics from a young age, as it is an essential building block to support the key skills of blending and decoding for reading and segmenting for accurate spelling. In Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1, we use Little Wandle as our chosen SSP to support the teaching of Phonics. Children receive daily phonic lessons and spelling programmes, which run throughout the week following the method of revise, teach, practise, apply and assess. As children move into Key stage two, they are taught Phonics as part of their English lessons, to support and develop their spelling and grammar application. Those children not achieving age related expectations in reading in Years 3 and 4 are also part of Little Wandle Rapid Catch Up phonics sessions. 

Reading

At Bushey Education Primary Federation, we believe that reading is an essential life skill and seek to develop a love of reading for all children. Through our teaching of reading, we aim to develop children’s ability to listen, speak and read for a range of purposes, enable the children to express themselves creatively and imaginatively, and encourage them to be enthusiastic and critical readers of a wide range of texts from a variety of genres and text types. We ensure that we provide a range of high-quality texts across the curriculum that utilise technologies, and inspire and motivate the children. All children read regularly with an adult as well as taking part in daily whole class reading sessions, designed to build depth in understanding and provide explicit teaching of comprehension skills. Through using book band systems within our school libraries, we are able to closely monitor reading practice and progress, and highlight gaps in development and understanding. At the junior school, the use of the computer-based program, Accelerated Reader, offers further support to children in selecting books that are engaging, current, provide suitable challenge and aim to meet the child’s individual needs. Annual events such as Book Week allow us to come together as a school community to share our love of books and promote pleasure for reading. The digital world we now find ourselves encourages us to find new and innovative ways to access high quality reading material and develop engaging activities online. Through our links with Chorleywood Bookshop, we continue to benefit from ‘book wish lists’ and are able to take part in author events, which help cultivate a love of reading across the curriculum.

Writing

We are committed to providing the children with a wealth of opportunities to express themselves in writing. We provide children with the essential tools they need to be confident writers through analysing texts, language acquisition, shared and modelled writing. Differentiated writing frames and scaffolds enable all children to express themselves and apply the skills taught to reflect their own interpretation. As the children progress from EYFS, throughout Key Stage One and to Key Stage Two, they combine their reading, grammar, vocabulary, and phonics/spelling skills to produce engaging and informative pieces of writing throughout the curriculum.

Handwriting

We initially use Read, Write Inc, a creative programme, that combines forming letters with familiar objects and rhymes. We use this programme combined with the Nelsons handwriting scheme, to ensure the expectations from the curriculum are met. This continues and extends into Key Stage Two, where the expectation is for children to consistently use cursive writing.