Nelson Academy Prospectus

12 English Initially, reading is taught at Nelson Academy using fully embedded synthetic phonics. Careful attention is paid to delivering the programme across groups in Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. • Fidelity to one systematic phonics programme – ‘Letters and Sounds’ • Daily discrete phonic sessions • Teaching is structured, fast paced and with opportunities for reinforcement • Pupils at the same level are taught together • Monitoring and tracking learning to identify any pupils slipping so that catch up is in place early • Ensuring lots of opportunities for using and applying across the curriculum • Continuing to involve parents and carers • Further rigorous monitoring of impact For pupils needing further support at the end of Key Stage 1 and beyond, our teaching assistants are all trained in delivering Sound Discovery, a high quality synthetic phonics literacy programme used to ‘plug gaps’. Other interventions used include Lexia, which provides explicit, systematic, personalised learning in the six areas of reading instruction. The principles of our synthetic phonics programme are continued through Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 with our spelling programme taken from the National Curriculum. These are delivered consistently from Year 1 through to Year 6. For the teaching of reading, all classes use guided reading alongside reading individually on a regular basis and enjoying shared books as a class. Using this, story cafes, library sessions, book reviews, spelling and extreme reading competitions we encourage a love of literature as well as learning the mechanics of reading. We aim to have reading as a pleasurable experience and try to foster a culture of literacy in all aspects of our academy. We follow the Nelson ‘handwriting scheme’ across the academy and pupils are encouraged to write for a wide variety of purposes and in different genres. Children work towards earning a ‘pen licence’ through the presentation of their work and meeting the handwriting requirements for their Key Stage. Curriculum Nelson 2017.indd 12 10/05/2017 08:47