English at Gledhow

Phonics

At Gledhow, Nursery to Year 2 students have regular phonics sessions using Bug Club's interactive resources. They revisit and learn new phonemes and graphemes, practicing with matching games and writing.

Nursery focuses on Phase 1 Phonics with rhymes, songs, instruments, and listening games.

Reception starts Phase 2 while continuing Phase 1, learning phonemes and graphemes, and developing reading and writing skills.

Year 2 reviews alternative phonemes and applies knowledge to reading and writing.

Reading

At Gledhow, children in Year 1 to Year 6 improve their comprehension skills through Reciprocal Reading. They work through a sequence of skills to support comprehension, including predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising. They share their thoughts as a class and comprehension is monitored through verbal conversations. Once a week, children complete a journaling activity to showcase their learning and understanding.

Handwriting

At Gledhow, we teach Debbie Hepplewhite's handwriting style, which emphasizes fluent lines of properly oriented letters from Foundation to Key Stage 1.

Foundation Stage focuses on mark-making with various materials, progressing fine-motor skills for comfortable pencil grips and correct letter formation.

By Year 2, children begin using joined handwriting and continue to develop these skills throughout Key Stage 2 with regular whole class or small group practice.

Writing

Gledhow's English lessons use the Writing Rainbow approach, breaking down learning into reading, analysing, practicing, planning, writing, editing and publishing. Texts are diverse and engaging, selected by teachers to increase motivation and desire to write. Published outcomes are linked to the text studied and encourage the application of taught grammatical concepts.

Spelling, Punctuation & Grammar

Children learn age-appropriate spellings weekly as part of homework and taught explicitly in school. Year 1 links spelling to phonics, and in KS2, the EdShed Spelling Scheme is followed. English lessons teach grammar and punctuation, relating to class texts where possible. Writing opportunities are given to apply spelling, punctuation and grammar skills, with celebration through editing and publishing.