Following on from my previous blog on Curriculum Development at Newhall Park I wanted to highlight in particular all the work we are doing as a school to further enhance Reading across the school.

Over the past year we have worked really hard to make our phonics teaching and Early Reading even more rigorous and robust. We have introduced the validated scheme of Little Wandle for our phonics teaching. If your child is in Reception, Year 1 or Year 2, or if you are interested in learning more about this approach, please click onto the relevant PowerPoints below.

Alongside this, we are investing heavily as a school in ensuring that in every year group there are ample high quality fiction, non-fiction and poetry books that are age appropriate for the children. After half term we will be ordering over 350 books to go into Reading for Pleasure book areas across the school. This investment will continue in subsequent years. Staff are being trained so we have a consistent rationale for Reading for Pleasure and this will also be shared with children and parents.

Please see the photographs below of some examples of the Little Wandle books and some examples of the Reading for Pleasure books. Moving forward there will be workshops planned and further communications to parents from Mrs Davis, the Phonics Leader and Mrs Farooq the English Subject Leader. We would really love for as many of you as possible to engage with these. Please keep your eyes peeled for specific information about such events in the future.

We have reached the end of another half term – time seems to be going increasingly quickly! School will re-open on Tuesday 21st February. Please do not hesitate to get in touch to share your thoughts with us about reading or anything else that we can help you with.