At Ripley Junior School, our intent is for each and every child to read and write with enjoyment, confidence and purpose. 

We create learning opportunities in which the children learn to recognise the importance of English skills in all aspects of their learning and to make connections with how these skills can be transferred to support them in the future. 

Reading

At Ripley Junior School, we believe a love for reading and ability to read is an entitlement for all and that it is key to academic success. By ensuring that reading is at the core of our curriculum, we are instilling in children the importance of reading as a transferable skill that will benefit them in all subjects.  

Our classrooms and school library have a varied and diverse range of books to support all interests, and children are regularly given opportunities for independent reading for pleasure.  Each class has a class story, and we regularly read aloud to the children in the classroom.  We also show our love for reading in our weekly 'story and singing assembly'.  

Reading is taught through a wide range of high quality texts featuring genres and topics which are often related to other current learning themes.   We teach reading as whole class lessons (Guided Reading), so that all children have access to the age-related skills and knowledge contained in the National Curriculum. We use VIPERS question stems to enable children to analyse texts and develop their comprehension skills. These focus on Vocabulary, Inference, Prediction, Explanation, Retrieval and Summarising. Within lessons, work is adapted to ensure challenge for those who require it and enable all children to access texts and achieve their learning targets.  

Writing

At RJS, we recognise the important place writing has in a child’s development, both in and out of school and aim to foster a love for writing in each and every child.  

Teachers provide opportunities to write in different subject areas, to further the children's understanding of topics and to develop and broaden vocabulary knowledge.  English units are often planned around other subject areas which supports vocabulary use and writing for purpose.

Throughout their time at Ripley Junior School, the children have the opportunity to learn how to write for a range of purposes and audience.  As they progress through the school, they will continue to consolidate and solidify their understanding of these text types and the structural and grammatical features that go with them.

 Spelling

As a junior school, we recognise that not all children will have passed the phonics test in Y2 and will need further support with phonics at KS2. We assess all the children in Year 3 to determine what level of support they need and what gaps they have in their phonic knowledge. We run daily phonics interventions for small groups to support the acquisition of these key skills, using the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-Up Phonics scheme. This is taught daily by a trained TA or teacher.

Those who no longer require the phonics intervention will receive spelling lessons.  These follow the No Nonsense Spelling scheme of work which develops a child’s ability to use recognise patterns in spelling and apply these patterns and relationships between words independently in their writing.

Little Wandle Rapid Catch Up

Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up is a complete catch-up programme that mirrors the main phonics programme the children experience at both our feeder infant schools.

It has been created to help children catch up quickly. By the end of the programme, children should be reading with enough fluency and accuracy to access the curriculum in class, and to read with enjoyment and understanding. Children will be assessed, and this will determine which phase they are taught. 

Children take part in daily sessions which target their reading fluency, reading comprehension and their spelling. The books children read during these sessions are matched to their current learning. Children will be brining home a sharing book from the library and word lists to practice reading and spelling. The website has some fantastic videos demonstrating how you can support your child at home. 

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/#tabnametabSupportForPhonics