English

Early reading

"Our mission is to teach every child to read and write, and to keep them reading.  No exceptions. Our core mission is to galvanise headteachers and teacher to:

1.  Put the teaching of reading at the heart of their schools and ensure teachers have the knowledge and determination to teach every child, regardless of age, background or need.

2.  Choose the best books to read aloud so children might read them for themselves.

3.  Place literature as a central pillar in establishing children's identity, their place in the world and their understanding of their responsibilities and rights in relation to others."

Ruth Miskin, Read, Write Inc Phonics

In September 2021, we adopted the 'Read, Write, Inc' scheme to teach phonics from the Early Years class. Our teacher, Mrs Redman, uses this scheme to teach Phase 2 phonics in reading and writing and tricky words after having been assessed in phase 1 phonics with their speaking and listening. Children in Reception learn the Read Write Inc set 1- set 3 sounds. As the children enter year 1, they will be taught all of the set 3 sounds and as they move into year 2 and KS2, they will be taught spelling following the No Nonsense Spelling programme.

Parent video: What is Read Write Inc Phonics

Parent video: How to say the sounds

Blending (Fred Talk)

To expose your child to the idea of blending sounds together to make words, break down the words of the simple vocabulary you often use at home.  For example, “please pass me that c – u – p”, “time for b – e - d”.  This will help your child to practise their own oral blending as they can repeat the sounds back to you and then say the word.  Help your child to say the pure sounds (‘m’ not ‘muh’, ‘s’ not ‘suh’ etc) as quickly as they can and then blend the sounds together to say the whole word.

Ruth Miskin demonstrates how to teach children phonics through assisted word blending. You can find out more about Ruth's Read Write Inc. Phonics approach at..

RWI New Curriculum Grid

RWI New Curriculum

Nurturing children's love of reading

Of course, children's love of reading and ability to understand what they read is developed through the reading of actual books.  This supplements the specific teaching of phonic sounds to enable them to become very good all-round readers. Early reading books have been matched to be decodable phonetically to support the children's learning.  Historically, many of our reading books belonged to the Oxford Reading Tree scheme, although over the years we have built up a wide range of books for the children to read beyond this. .For early reading we have now invested in Read Write Inc resources.  For more on our Reading Curriculum please click here.

Reading ambassadors

At Pensford, we have developed Reading Ambassadors, whose job is to promote their love of reading to the rest of their class and school. They meet every term with Mr Miller to discuss what books they have recently read and would recommend as well as what books the school needs to order. They write reviews about the book, which get put onto our Reading Ambassador site (please click here to see them) as well as on Twitter to share with the authors, which have proven to be very popular.

Reading Cannon with Mr B's Emporium

From September 2022 we will be launching a Key Stage 2 Reading Cannon.  Children will be challenged and encouraged to read 12 carefully-selected books across the year.  All of these books are in stock in our school library and we have also teamed up with Mr B's Emporium in Bath, who have donated a book token prize.  Children who read all 12 books in the year will be entered into a draw to win the £20 book token.  Mr B's have also compiled the Pensford book lists in one place so that children and parents can browse the titles we have chosen for each year group.  Click below to unlock a treasure trove of reading for your child's year group...

Children as writers

In writing, our curriculum (writing and EGPS) is developing quickly to allow children to write at length on a number of interesting topics.  This helps to develop both their interest in writing and their ability to re-draft and refine their work to produce work that is genuinely their 'personal best'. We follow a Talk4Writing scheme where we teach a fiction and non-fiction unit every term in Key Stage 2, a fiction or non-fiction in Key Stage 1, and building up language and story telling in EYFS.

Please see our writing curriculum here.