Primary FAQs

There will be a maximum of 30 children in each class.

Each class will have a teacher and a member of support staff.

Yes, the Christian ethos of the school will be a very strong element in all areas and children will take part in daily worship and reflection. We will have a school prayer and very clear core values based on our Christian beliefs.

All pupils in Year R, 1 & 2 will be provided with a cooked school meal as part of their day. All meals will be prepared on site in the school kitchen.

Yes. In addition to teaching staff there will be support staff and lunchtime staff and all adults in school will take a role in ensuring pupils are always supervised during the day. We also have our Primary Wellbeing Co-ordinator who is available all day supporting students.

Our Reception students will do 10 mornings and then start school full-time. Some schools prefer to delay this for the first term but we see many benefits of having the children full time as soon as possible. In some cases there may be individuals who are not ready to start full-time and this would be discussed with their parents.

We will be using the Project X reading scheme for daily guided reading sessions. For our home reading books, we will use reading schemes but there will be a range of schemes to incorporate phonics, fiction and non-fiction. It is essential that children are offered a range of books to read to broaden their skills and understanding. Children will be encouraged to choose books frequently to read at home. All classrooms will also have book corners stocked with a range of texts for children to enjoy.

Yes – it is essential that a structured systematic scheme is used to teach phonics. We will use Jolly Phonics. 

What is Jolly Phonics?

Jolly phonics is a comprehensive programme, based on a fun and multi-sensory synthetic phonics method that gets children reading and writing from and early age. We teach the 42 letter sounds as opposed to the alphabet. These 42 letter sounds are the phonic building blocks that children require to decode the English language. The programme is comprised of five key skills that children need to master phonics which include learning how to write the letter sounds, how to blend the sounds for reading, and how to identify the sounds in the words for spelling and writing. Alongside this, children learn about tricky words as well as being introduced to the alternative spellings of vowels. These five key skills form the foundation that children build on with each year of grammar teaching.

Learning the letter sounds

Children are taught 42 letter sounds, which is a mix of alphabet sounds (1 sound – 1 letter) and digraphs (1 sound – 2 letters) such as sh, th, ai and ue. Using a multi-sensory approach each letter sound is introduced with fun actions, stories and songs.

We teach the letter sounds in 7 groups of 6 letters at a pace of 4-5 sounds a week. Children can start reading after the first group of letters have been taught and should have been introduced to all the 42 letter sounds after 9 weeks at school.

Learning letter formation

This is taught alongside the introduction of each letter sound. Typically, children will learn how to form and write the letters.

Blending

Once the first few letter sounds are learnt, children begin blending the sounds together to help them read and write new words. 

Segmenting

When children start reading words, they also need to start identifying the phonic components that make the word sound the way it does. By teaching blending and segmenting at the same time children become familiar with assembling and breaking down the sounds within words.

Tricky Words

These are words with irregular parts, such as ‘who’ and ‘I’. Children learn these as exceptions to the rules of phonics. Introducing the common tricky words early in the year increases reading fluency (as they frequently occur in those first simple sentences you might expect them to read).

Very probably – school trips are designed to support and enhance the learning taking place in school. If the children go on a trip a full risk assessment will take place first and additional adults will be asked to go on the trip to ensure high adult to pupil ratios.

A full, smart uniform including a school book bag and PE kit. You will not need to provide any equipment in terms of pens, pencils etc. All equipment needed for learning will be provided by the school.

Yes, this is one school and we will be promoting collaborative opportunities between the older and younger students in their learning. It is a fantastic opportunity for our youngest children to have so many excellent older role models to be involved in their learning and we will be actively looking for ways for all pupils to be involved in ‘whole school’ life together. 

Yes, although we would refer to it as home learning and it will be underpinned by parents being fully involved – the most important element of home learning in the early years is that parents are giving their children the message that they want them to do well at school, that they are really proud of the work they do and that they think school and learning is really important. If children are not bothered about continuing their learning at home at this age, they will not be doing their homework independently when they are 13!! Home learning will consist of reading books, phonics and a weekly shared task designed to promote breadth of experiences and language development incorporating all aspects of the curriculum.