At Rampton Primary School we recognise the importance of studying English as a subject in its own right and as a tool to access other curriculum areas. Improved performance in reading, writing and spoken language will enable our pupils to express their thoughts and ideas successfully in all curriculum subjects, while enriching their lives beyond school. Pupils will be given opportunities to develop their use, knowledge and understanding of spoken and written English within a broad and balanced curriculum, with opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught literacy skills.  We aim to promote high standards of literacy by providing pupils with a strong grasp of the spoken and written word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment.

Classroom displays celebrate a variety of children's writing.  They also include useful tools to help the children with their literacy such as commonly misspelled words and recommended reading books. 

Our school library includes a variety of fiction and non-fiction books for the children to read for pleasure, or to be used as part of their learning in school. 

Handwriting

At Rampton Primary School, we teach the children to write in a cursive style from Reception. They will learn to form every letter with an entry and exit stroke.  Children are taught that every letter starts on the line. As they progress through phonics, we begin to teach digraphs and trigraphs as joined letters. 

Regular practice is key: your child will receive daily handwriting sessions at school. We will emphasise the correct entry and exit strokes every time. It is essential that your child gets into good habits early on and this includes having the correct pencil grip.

Although the cursive style can seem like quite an effort to start as it takes slightly longer to write each letter separately, you will really see the benefits when your child starts to join fully towards the end of Year 1 and in Year 2. 

Please see the attached documents for examples of cursive handwriting:

Writing Interventions

At Rampton Primary School, we use the Switch-on intervention, which aims to support pupils to participate more fully in the classroom by becoming more confident, active and independent readers and writers.

Switch-on is a 20 minute, daily, adult led, personalised literacy intervention for pupils who require extra support to reach age related expectations. Switch-on addresses both reading and writing by alternating the focus session by session.  It is a ten week programme with the expectation of accelerated progress during this time.

Literacy National Curriculum

Book Band Bookmarks

Below you will find bookmarks that can be printed off to support to your child when reading with them.  They detail what the children should be able to do when reading a certain colour book band, provide advice on how to help children with their reading and offer sample questions that you can ask your children when reading with them.