Our Curriculum
Curriculum Overview
Phonics & Reading
At New Futures we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. Through phonics children learn to segment words to support their spelling ability and blend sounds to read words. The teaching of phonics is of high priority.
At New Futures we use the Department of Education approved Systematic Synthetic Phonics Scheme Jolly Phonics for our teaching of phonics. This allows our phonics teaching and learning to be progressive. On joining, all children (KS1 & KS2) have a baseline assessment. If they have 75% or more of their GPCs then gaps are identified and interventions planned, using the Jolly Phonics material. If they have less than 75% then children have discrete, daily phonics sessions where they revise previous learning, are taught new graphemes/phonemes, practise and apply what they have learnt.
Through Jolly Phonics, the children are taught the phonemes that make up all the sounds required for reading and spelling. These phonemes include those made by just one letter and those that are made by two or more. Children work through the scheme and as they grow in confidence and experience, they are introduced to alternative ways of representing the same sound. Children are encouraged to practise their skills and develop their fluency by reading books matched to the GPCs taught so far.
Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. Children can then focus on developing fluency and comprehension throughout the school. Attainment in phonics is measured half termly and interventions provided as appropriate.
Beyond phonics
As the children move beyond decoding, they engage in daily reading activities - these are drawn from Literacy Leaves (Literacy Tree) guided reading books. The children are assessed at least termly (more often if appropriate) using PM Benchmark. The books the children read in school are taken from Benchmark book bands and carefully matched to their reading level.
Reading across the curriculum
Curriculum areas have suggested texts identified to provide opportunities for reading across the curriculum. These may be books which are read to them by the adults or they may be read by the children. In this way, children are able to extend their subject knowledge, increase their fluency and also investigate different sources and their veracity.
Home reading
All children are offered home reading books. They receive one which is linked to their current reading level and one which they have chosen to share at home, irrespective of their reading level. The books are changed as often as required.
Reading for pleasure
At New Futures, adults read to their children daily. Reading a book aloud offers children access to books that they may not be able to read themselves, introduces them to new authors, experiences and adventures - it is also great fun! To ensure that high quality texts are prioritised, a core collection of books is available for use during these sessions. Beyond this, children will often recommend books they have enjoyed reading to children and adults who may pop into their class. Children at New Futures have the opportunity to visit their local library on a regular basis to choose their own books. From this, a number of children have now joined the library independently and are opening up this experience to their families.