Miss Fleming is our Literacy Subject Leader as she is enthusiastic about developing children's skills in preparation for their life long learning journey. She believes that laying the foundations early on makes a real difference to a child's development, which is why she has ensured high quality phonics teaching and learning occurs daily, and, reading within the Early Years is given a priority where reading is presented at every opportunity. Miss Fleming is passionate about developing the love of reading within school and has worked hard to ensure that children are provided with the very best opportunities to develop a love of reading, through timely visits to the local library; developing a reading scheme through Accelerated Reader to allow children independent choice in their reading and continually revising book choices to ensure children are continually stimulated to read for pleasure. She works regularly with other schools and agencies to ensure that teaching and learning of Literacy is at the forefront of your child's education, proving high quality texts and new methods of teaching and learning to enhance your child's progression.

Intent

At Our Lady and St Anselm's, we believe that sound literacy skills are essential for progress across the curriculum and to prepare pupils effectively for tasks of adult life.

All teachers have a responsibility to develop pupils’ competence in reading, writing, speaking and listening in their own subjects and to ensure that pupils become competent users of language, and can access the curriculum effectively and achieve their potential.

Children arrive into reception working below average within reading and writing on Development Matters. This means early emphasis needs to be put into these children acquiring the basic skills necessary to develop early within KS1. The development of literacy skills across the curriculum will be implemented according to the following guidelines:

• Schemes of work will specify how literacy skills are reinforced within their subject areas.
• Staff will follow whole school policies on marking and literacy.
• pupils lacking basic literacy skills will be identified, and the special educational needs coordinator SENCO and head of literacy will advise teaching staff on supporting pupils with reading and writing difficulties.
• All assessment and testing will take place according to the school’s Assessment Policy.
• Teachers will be expected to uphold high standards and deliver lessons of high-quality, using effective and up-to-date teaching methods and tasks.

We aim to develop pupils’ abilities within an integrated programme of Speaking & Listening, Reading & Writing.  Pupils will be given opportunities to interrelate the requirements of English within a broad and balanced approach to the teaching of English across the curriculum, with opportunities to consolidate and reinforce taught literacy skills.

At Our Lady and St Anselm’s R.C. Primary school we strive for children to be a ‘Primary Literate Pupil.’

By the age of 11 we aim for a child to be able to:

• read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding, orchestrating a range of independent strategies to self-monitor and correct.
• have an interest in books and read for enjoyment
• have an interest in words, their meanings; developing a growing vocabulary in spoken and written forms.
• understand a range of text types and genres – be able to write in a variety of styles and forms appropriate to the situation.
• be developing the powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness. 
• have a suitable technical vocabulary to articulate their responses.

At OLSA, every child is given the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to become analytical readers and competent authors. We promote the enjoyment of reading by carefully selecting high-quality texts that are used for learning across the curriculum. By providing our children with the skills to read, they are able to broaden their knowledge in a range of subject disciplines.

Children are exposed to a word rich curriculum through the use of working walls and revision of key words. Through immersion in high-quality texts, teachers identify and explicitly teach rich and varied vocabulary, providing them with the tools to become confident communicators, readers and writers. The reason for this is simple: to close the vocabulary gap for our most disadvantaged children.

Carefully planned writing lessons using The Write Stuff and Lancashire planning allow our children to develop their skills, by adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. They are given the opportunity to apply their skills across the curriculum and they are encouraged to use language effectively to create a desired effect on the reader. Our intention is that by the time children leave OLSA, they have had the opportunity to master skills in speaking, reading and writing that will prepare them for secondary education and life beyond the school gates.

Reading Across the School

Reading forms a large part of the curriculum here at OLSA and carefully selected texts for other curriculum areas ensure that it remains at the heart of their learning. Alongside Literacy sessions, daily guided and whole class shared reading sessions take place in all classes across the school. Through these sessions, the children can develop their reading comprehension skills around vocabulary, retrieval and inference, prediction, explanation and summarising linked to their focus text. We value the importance of the explicit pre-teaching of vocabulary so that our children don’t stumble on unknown words and can have a better understanding of the text. Once they have an understanding of the text, they are encouraged to read like an author. Reading with a writer’s eye helps to deepen understanding of how language has been used to create different effects, which they can draw on in their writing.

At OLSA, we always aim to promote reading for pleasure as this itself plays a major role in reading development. Our teachers are readers and share their love of reading with their children in a range of ways, including daily class reads and special events such as mystery readers and world book day. Each classroom has an inviting reading area, resourced with ‘top picks’ and books linked to topics. The children in KS1are also given the opportunity to visit our well-stocked library regularly, where they can borrow books to take home.

Alongside the teaching of reading, we encourage our children to love stories, books, authors poetry and plays. A large part of children's understanding of intonation and expression is delivered through their annual performances in KS1 and KS2.  We also recognise the influence authors can have upon engaging children and making learning relevant and meaningful, which is why we have re-introduced authors visits back into school. Visits schedules so far for a virtual session include Andy Griffiths (13 Storey Treehouse) and Matt Goodfellow (shortlisted for this years CLiPPA poetry prize).

On Tuesday, 30th January, Year 1 visited Whitworth Library to complete some activities based around Traditional Tales. The children sat and listened to tales read to them and they had a chance to explore the whole library. 

This half term, we celebrated the successes of every class for working so hard in their reading and writing. Two children from each class were chosen to be the star reader and writer of the term. Teachers all agreed that it was an extremely difficult decision to make. We also celebrated other successes by recognising children who were going above and beyond in their reading this term. We also celebrated class achievements with Succeed class being the class to win the most word count with a staggering 1, 158, 955 words read so far. Class Blossom were close behind with 1,130, 398. A fantastic achievement for a year 3 class! It was no wonder they were chosen as Miss Fleming's class of the term to take the trophy back to class! All classes celebrated their progress with hot chocolate and a biscuit too!

On Tuesday, 10th October, Succeed class visited Whitworth Library to continue their learning on the events of WW2. They listened to facts read by Amy and explored what a ration box would look like in comparison to a real army ration box of today. The children found the whole experience very enlightening and were even given their own evacuee tag! After the talk, the children were given free run of the library to explore, read and take home books to continue to develop their love of books!

National Poetry Day: Thursday 5th October 2023

On Thursday, the children were involved within National Poetry Day whereby each class was given a poem to read and discuss aloud based upon the theme of Refuge. The children enjoyed listening to the poems and thinking about the importance of caring for one another and having an understanding of the difficulties faced by some people. 

The main aims were:

• To showcase new voices and celebrate diversity
• To promote the vital role that poetry plays in all our lives – poetry has the power to bring people and communities together
• To foster love of language and the sharing of poetry

A selection of the children's poems that were shared with the children can be found on the link: https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/ 

Here is one of the poems: On the move again somewhere by Michael Rosen.

You know
You gotta go.

No time to grieve
You just gotta leave.

Get away from the pain
On the move again.

Take the train.
Catch a plane.

Make the trip
In a ship.

Take a hike.
Ride a bike.

Go by car.
Going far.

Use your feet
On the street.

Get stuck
In a truck.

Then you arrive.
And you’re alive.

You arrive.
You’re alive.

What you leave behind
Won’t leave your mind.

But home is where you find it.
Home is where you find it.
Home is where you find it.
Home is where you find it

This term, to celebrate authors, Year 6 had a virtual author visit to recognise Black History month. Here the children listened to how people from all over the world migrated to and settled within the UK. 

On Friday, 22nd September, Reception and Year 1 took part in a virtual author visit with Em Lynas where they listened to some of her Fun with Rhymes: The Goat and The Stoat and the Boat. The children loved hearing her silly rhymes and even had a go at creating their own rhymes.

On Wednesday, 4th October, Year 2 participated in a fun virtual author visit with Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton who read their funny tales and rhymes of Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam. The children loved hearing all about the characters and even had a go at creating their own character following advice from the author.

Thank you to two amazing children in Inspire class who have donated a selection of texts they have read at home to our Accelerated Reader library. Donations such as these make such a difference to ensure that our library remains fully stocked, full of variety and have books that are recommended by their own peers. What amazing generosity!

Last term, Reception class visited Whitworth Library for an activity to help them develop their enthusiasm for reading. The children throroughly enjoyed the visit, learning about traditional tales, rhymes and stories. They listened to staff at the library read books to them and then completed a little activity, whilst having a browse for their own books with their own card! 

On Tuesday, 26th April 2022, Blossom class visited Whitworth Library for a reading and activity workshop based around their current learning on the Romans. The children had a fabulous time listening to Roman tales, sharing ideas and browsing the library for their own books to take home.

On Wednesday, 19th January 2022 we were visited by the author Damian Harvey. Damian came to share a selection of his stories with the children before embarking on a writing workshop with each class. The aim of the day was to help children become fired up with writing again, learn important skills of how to begin stories and develop ways to be creative in their writing. The children enjoyed listening to Damian and certainly took away some great ideas for their own stories!

Virtual Author:

On Monday, 18th October Year 5 and 6 had a virtual visit from the poet Matt Goodfellow. The children took part in an interactive session where they listened to a selection of readings from the author, alongside joining in with some of his favourite poems. Matt spoke to the children about how poetry can come from anywhere - real life experiences always help inspire him to write. He spoke of how poetry can give children a voice and he would love to see some of our children developing their own pieces of 'rebel writing!'

Helaina: "I really enjoyed the session and his readings because his poems were funny. I also liked how he had used his real life to share what he was feeling."

Ted: "I liked listening to how his poems were based upon what he enjoyed in life. His imagination was amazing to be able to create poems like that - even about ninja squirrels!"

Ged: "I thought the author was very good. I loved his 'Badger' poem as it was funny. I realised that poems do not have to rhyme but can be about expressing emotions in the here and now."

Whitworth Library

On Tuesday, 21st January 2020, Inspire class visited Whitworth Library to continue to raise awareness of reading for pleasure and also, to introduce them to further texts on their current topic, The Victorians. Whilst at the library, the children were read a story about real life back in Victorian Whitworth and what it would have been like for a child of their age. After that, they were then free to roam the library and look for books to loan to develop their enjoyment of reading.