Our goal is to instil a love of reading in children from the start of their journey at St Paul’s. In KS1, we aim to ensure that children are able to confidently apply their phonics knowledge to decode age-appropriate texts to become more fluent readers as well as developing an understanding of what they have read to encourage a love of reading.

We build upon this fluency by focussing upon further improving comprehension and understanding of language and vocabulary in KS2 through a range of collaborative and independent learning styles. All children in KS2 have access to Bedrock, an online learning platform that explicitly teaches tier 2 and 3 vocabulary through a range of texts.

We intend to develop confident readers that continue to develop a love of books which capture their interest, educate and challenge them throughout their time at St Paul’s and beyond. We are very proud of our curriculum at St Paul’s, which is underpinned by a range of high-quality texts. Some of our curriculum connectors include focus texts for the whole school to access in their English learning such as The Jungle Book, Mulan, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These whole school texts are a fantastic showcase for progression across school.

We recognise that where there is under achievement, or lack of opportunity for reading, we need to identify this early and address it through catch up programmes, interventions and one to one reading time with children to help them make progress.

Progression in Reading 

At Hoddlesden St Paul's CEP School and Nursery we are using the Lancashire’s Key Learning to support with the  planning and sequencing children's progression and learning gains. These are key learning statements which;

• support teachers' planning and address gaps in learning
• help teachers focus on where children are in their learning
• guide teachers' judgements as to whether children are on track to meet year group expectations and how much progress is being made over time

The underlined statements are considered as essential aspects for children to understand if the final year group expectations are to be met.