English
Reading:
At Travis St Lawrence, we recognise that reading for pleasure makes a big difference to a child’s educational performance and helps them develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge, confidence and a better understanding of the world around them. Children begin school with a concentrated and systematic teaching of phonics which follows a carefully planned and tightly structured approach through the use of the Read, Write Inc programme and Freshstart for older readers needing to catch up more rapidly. Pupils are given opportunities to apply what they have learnt through reading – including time to read aloud to adults to practise their decoding skills and comprehension of what they are reading. As children leave these earlier programmes, they are introduced to ‘Cracking Comprehension’ which focuses on the teaching of key reading skills, such as inference and retrieval, in a range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Our teachers supplement this with a variety of exciting reading sessions linked to current topics over the course of the year, providing children with the practice and experience they need to tackle more complex questions and themes in more challenging texts as they progress through Upper Key Stage Two.
As you walk around our school, you will see that our reading culture and ethos is really helping to create the ravenous, lifelong readers that we want our children to become.
Writing/SPaG:
Spelling, punctuation and grammar have become the driving force in writing recently and as teachers at Travis, we have firm reservations for teaching grammar that links meaningfully to the way our children write. Our topics are designed thoughtfully around the new curriculum and are chosen carefully to ensure that writers from all backgrounds are well catered for. We have nurtured the notion that SPaG and writing work simultaneously and in the new climate of accuracy and precision, our children are trained to become effective proof-readers, capable of editing their work accordingly. Across both key stages a range of genres are covered including short stories, poetry, diary entries, playscripts, letters, reports, instructions, explanation texts and newspaper reports.