As well as being a core subject of the National Curriculum, English is at the heart of our whole curriculum. Children’s abilities are developed within an integrated programme of speaking and listening, reading and writing, handwriting and spelling in order to make them skilled communicators, fluent readers and expressive writers.
The government are strongly promoting the use of synthetic phonics when teaching early literacy skills to children. Synthetic phonics is simply the ability to convert a letter or letter group into sounds that are then blended together into a word. At March CE School we use a synthetic programme called 'Read Write Inc' produced by Ruth Miskin. This involves the children learning the pure sounds letters make, blending them together to read and write words and using these learnt sounds in their reading and writing.
All children from Reception to the end of KS2 are assessed when they enter March CE School. This lets us know exactly what a child already knows and what they need to be taught next. They are set in literacy from Reception across ability groups. These groups are very fluid and the children will move at the end or within a half term according to their learning needs.