World aware

Teachers select a wide-range of texts to teach reading skills in whole-class reading lessons that incorporate knowledge and culture of people and places from around the world. Also, we have a text reading list for each year group (see appendix in policy) which indicates which books will be read to the children during the year; books highlighted in bold include themes which promote diversity and inclusion. 

Belonging

Through our whole-class reading lessons, children find and understand their own place in the world and how they belong and contribute to it. Our children are encouraged to take a pride in their class book corners and to care for the school books, including our school library. All classes also enjoy visiting the school library on a regular basis and year 6 children are given the opportunity to be library monitors. At times, children will be given a reading buddy (paired with a child from an older or younger class) to share books with during love of reading sessions.

Well-being

We raise the self-esteem of our pupils by ensuring that our children become confident and enthusiastic readers. We are determined that every pupil will learn to read, regardless of their backgrounds, needs or abilities. We seek to ensure that all pupils, including the weakest readers will make sufficient progress to meet or exceed age-related expectations.  Our on-going assessment is sufficiently frequent and detailed to identify any pupil who is falling behind.

Spirituality

As part of the texts that teachers select for whole-class reading sessions, they look for text that give opportunities for the development of children's spirituality. We also have a text reading list for each year group, which indicates which books will be read to the children during the year. Within each year group, books are selected to stimulate discussion about themes associated with the big questions in the world along with aspects of awe and wonder.

Possibilities

Our reading curriculum, including our whole-class reading sessions, sets high expectations for all of our pupils: as confident readers our children are able to achieve in all other curriculum areas. Our topic-based curriculum encourages discussion of future possibilities in the wider world and this is reinforced by our reading choices.