We endeavour to foster a deep and meaningful love of reading within the children at Ormiston Meadows Academy, and it is for this reason that it is central to our curriculum. Not only is reading seen as an immensely powerful tool – igniting children’s imagination and creativity, but it also provides them with purposeful and practical knowledge for their futures.
To that end, we are committed to sharing high quality and vocabulary rich texts across the curriculum so that children may develop knowledge of themselves and the world in which they live. We encourage our pupils to discover new information and develop their comprehension skills by reading widely using both fiction and non-fiction texts which (where possible) are linked to their topics across the curriculum. Children we be encouraged to show their self -worth by talking to others about their thought and feeling about what they have read. The children will be offered a rich diet of books and show respect to a range of authors and genres. They will be encouraged to spend time with books as part of their weekly timetable, including time to read for pleasure and showing resilience to learn the skills needed to read for a range of purposes.
Once our pupils have shown excellence in unlocking the key to reading here with us, it is our intention that they will be able to apply their reading skills in order to access any subject in their secondary education and beyond.
PHONICS
At Ormiston Meadows Academy, we recognise reading as a key life skill, which underpins access to the rest of the curriculum. We aim for children to read words and simple sentences by the end of Reception, become successful, fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1 and develop a lifelong love of reading as they move through school. The systematic teaching of synthetic phonics, using the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme, is given a high priority throughout Early Years and Key Stage 1. Children need to learn key phonic knowledge and develop skills in segmenting and blending to complete the phonics check at the end of Year 1 and as part of developing fluency in reading. We also value and encourage pupils to read for enjoyment and recognise that this starts with the foundations of acquiring letter sounds, segmenting and blending skills – enjoying success and gaining confidence from a positive experience.
Important Dates:
Year 1 Phonics Testing – week commencing 9th June 2025
Year 6 KS2 SATs – 12th May to 15th May 2025