English

“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.”
Robert Louis Stevenson

At Ouston Primary School we aim to develop confident and enthusiastic readers and writers, who see these skills not only as tools to higher order tasks, but as hobbies in their own right. Fundamentally, we seek to increase reading efficiency (the smoothness and speed at which words are encoded) in order to promote better comprehension of texts and, thus, enhanced enjoyment of them by our children. An increased amount of pleasure from reading leads to children exploring different authors and their styles, which ultimately inspires them to write with flair, passion and confidence.

We provide our children with a diverse range of texts, across several genres, from the moment they start their journey at our school. As they develop their love of reading – and indeed their reading skills – we provide writing opportunities that stimulate, excite and empower our children to express themselves on paper. We encourage creativity in children’s writing and link it closely, through carefully selected novels, to their current geography, history or science focus. The combination of a widening subject knowledge and the enjoyment of writing results in children producing high quality pieces. We also place a high emphasis on a continual progression in every child’s understanding of spelling, grammar and punctuation and ensure that they learn how to structure their ideas effectively.

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