The English Zone

Reading and Writing at Noremarsh

At Noremarsh we want all of our children to leave us at the end of year 6 as confident readers and writers. Regular reading from an early age is vital for success at school and has lifelong benefits.

We use two schemes within our English curriculum called Literacy Tree and Star Reader. You can read more about what this means in teach of those sections.

We are relentless about promoting a love of English literature and language for all of our children, whatever their age, ability or interests. We are very proud of our library, which opened in May 2022. This fantastic resource containing a huge range of fiction and non-fiction books to motivate and capture the interests of our children. It is also an area where the children can enjoy a calm environment right at the heart of Noremarsh and is open during some lunchtimes and after school on a Monday.

Our teachers deliver daily class guided reading sessions to children. These focus on a new text each week. Where possible, these are linked to the current class topic. In our weekly “celebration assembly”, teachers reward individual readers who have stood out for their participation, not simply their achievement, in reading activities. It can be a hotly contested event!

We ask parents and carers to support their child’s reading at home and writing at home and you can read more about these via the links.

Parents and carers can also support their children in learning spellings. Children are regularly assessed in reading, writing, grammar and spellings to identify both their progress and their development needs.

At Noremarsh, our aim is that children will develop handwriting which is neat, legible and correctly joined.

Cursive joined handwriting is taught using the “Letter-join” scheme.

Spelling is taught using “Spelling Shed”. This scheme teaches the children spelling rules and strategies to help them learn their spellings. Spelling practise is a part of weekly homework in all year groups through Doodle Spell. We high expectations for application of spellings within all works of writing in school. Just let your class teacher know if there are ever any concerns.

The grammar elements of the National Curriculum are planned for and embedded within English lessons. Children are given opportunities to practise their grammar skills within short burst writing before applying them to final pieces of writing.