Reading

Intent

At Downton C of E Primary School, our vision for reading is to inspire children by exposing them to a wide range of high-quality texts from diverse authors and cultures. We aim for every child to become a fluent, confident reader who enjoys exploring different genres. Through regular opportunities for shared reading and discussion of these books, alongside time dedicated to reading for pleasure, we foster a passion for reading. This, in turn, sparks creativity and ambition in our young writers, encouraging them to express themselves confidently and imaginatively.

Implementation

We aim for children to be informed readers, listeners and thinkers by exposing them to a wide range of texts. As a staff team, we have identified key texts which every child should experience on their journey through Downton. By developing critical reading and thinking skills, children will gain knowledge of the world and understand the power of language. Click here to see the progression of reading at Downton.

As a part of our phonics scheme, the children in EYFS and Year 1 read daily during their phonics lessons. Once they have completed the phonic scheme, Year 2 children begin their guided reading journey, exploring texts together as a class and developing their skills in retrieval, inference and prediction. Each term, the Key Stage one classes have a new chapter book to read at the end of each day so children are exposed to longer texts and new vocabulary.

In Key Stage two we focus on a high quality text each term which also becomes our class read. This is used as a stimulus for guided reading at the beginning of each term. The children are given questions each day focusing on a specific skill from our reading progression document to ensure curriculum coverage across the year. Throughout the term, there will also be a number of weeks where the focus text is a variety of non-fiction and poetry.

Impact

The impact of our English curriculum at Downton is evident in pupils’ achievement and progress. A higher-than-average percentage of pupils meet or exceed age-related expectations in reading and writing at the end of Key Stage 2 which is consistently evidenced through internal assessments and national tests. Moreover, increased parental engagement in reading initiatives reflects the community's support for the English curriculum. Events such as reading-focused open classrooms, and our top pick reads, foster partnerships between school and home, enhancing pupil learning. Our English curriculum also enhances pupils' cultural awareness and understanding. Through exposure to diverse texts and authors, pupils develop empathy and appreciation for different perspectives, contributing to broader educational goals. In essence, through the delivery of reading and writing, Downton C of E Primary School creates an enriching, inclusive, and effective learning environment that develops pupils' literacy skills and inspires a love of language.

Reading for pleasure

At Downton, children are empowered to make their own choices surrounding reading for pleasure. We have lunch time story stop club in our library where children are encouraged to borrow and read books. We are fortunate to have two reading sheds (one for EYFS and KS1 and one for KS2) full of wonderful books for our children to enjoy at lunchtimes and breaktimes. We have a dedicated, well stocked, library in school as well as book corners in every class. Our Early Years and Key Stage One classes visit our library weekly to borrow picture books and our Key Stage Two children visit termly.

We encourage our children to develop a love of reading through sharing books with adults at least five times a week. Children who have read frequently throughout the week or have shown great improvement in their efforts have the opportunity to be awarded Reader of the Week. Each term a name is drawn from the weekly winners and one child from each class is awarded Reader of the Term. They are then invited to join a special trip to the Rocketship Bookshop in Salisbury to choose a book of their choice and to listen to a story. After, they get to go to Boston Tea Party for a hot chocolate.

Downton’s top 100

Our carefully selected 100 top pick reads are launched each year with the children receiving a bookmark of the books chosen for their year group. These books are available in our library, the local library in Downton and may be found in our classes. Once the children have completed their bookmark, they receive a sparkly star badge for their year group.