Our school curriculum is driven and shaped by our school vision, which informs everything that we do.

St Nicholas provides a welcoming, inclusive and aspirational learning environment at the heart of its community. We nurture, encourage and support all children, adults and their families to be the best as God intended. Following God’s example of love and trust, we develop resilience and creativity in all we do.

Learning, loving and encouraging through Christ.

An uncompromising focus on pupils’ personal development has made St Nicholas Church of England Primary Academy a place where pupils always come first. Ofsted 2019

Read, Write Inc.

At St Nicholas, our Key Stage 1 classes teach daily phonics lessons to ensure every child is a successful reader.

We follow the successful Ruth Miskin Read, Write Inc phonics programme; grouping children according to their reading ability and reading level.

Read, Write Inc is a systematic and dynamic literacy programme rooted in phonics. We teach children how to break down and decode words into their separate sounds components, known as phonemes. There are 44 phonemes taught throughout the programme, all of which are embedded in a range of fiction and non-fiction books. The words are taught prior to reading a book to ensure children are equipped at decoding them; we call this ‘Fred Talk’.

Fred is a Read, Write Inc character that only speaks and understands pure sounds (sounds in a word before they are blended).

How to Help at Home

Ruth Miskin has a fantastic website that offers a range of videos explaining how to support your child at home: www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents

Please ask your child what colour book they are reading in Read, Write Inc to guide you on where to look on the website.

If you would like any further information about Read, Write Inc please speak to Miss Common our Reading Leader, or see many of the resources below.

Phonics Screening

Last week we ran a parent meeting about the Phonics Screening that Year One pupils will do in June this year.

Please find attached the Powerpoint.

Children should have also received a pack if you weren’t able to attend the meeting.

If you have any questions or queries please don’t hesitate to contact your class teacher or Miss Common!

Here  is a video from Ruth Miskin:

How our children learn to read Set 3 sounds at St Nicholas Primary Academy:

Sound pronunciation help for parents:

How quickly can you read these?

Here are some quick documents to use online or print off to help support your child with the phonics screening which will take place in Week 2

Say to your child….

“Special Friends”

“Fred Talk”

“Say the word”

You’ll be amazed at how they can segment long words to read them – support them by looking for blends at the start of a word e.g. br (bright)  st (stilt)

 

Websites for Phonics

Here are some websites that you can use to help your child to read words in preparation for their phonics screening next term!

 

Remember in school we always remind the children with the phrases:

‘Special friends’ (this means children need to look for the two or three letters that make one sound i.e. air, ew, ow, igh)

‘Fred Talk’ (this means children need to segment or sound out the word after finding the special friends. i.e. ch-a-t / f-l-ow-er)

‘Say the word’ (this means children need to now blend the sounds together to make a word)

 

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/InteractiveResources.htm

https://www.phonicsbloom.com/uk/game/yes-no-yeti?phase=5

https://www.phonicsbloom.com/uk/game/word-pairsphase=3

http://flash.topmarks.co.uk/4100

http://www.literactive.com/Download/live.aspswf=story_files/warehouse_US.swf

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/read-write-inc-phonics–1/

http://www.oxfordphonicschecksupport.co.uk/login?

Here are some words to practise at home:

 

Phonics Club on Tuesdays

We are supporting our children through phonics Club on a Tuesday afternoon, they’ve been working really hard this term and their progress is phenomenal! This week it was so hot that we took our club outside. The children focused on ew, ow, and ai/air sounds. We found objects that had those sounds in, played water games and practised writing them. Well done to you all!

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Phonics Screening

Parent meeting about the Phonics Screening Test tomorrow!

8:15am and 2:30pm Children welcome to come too..

Here is an amazing resource, register for free and practise reading words at home 🙂

http://www.oxfordphonicschecksupport.co.uk

Look at the RWI page on the school website and on Class Dojo for more resources and games to play at home too!

Phonics Screening

Thanks to the parents who came to join us for the Year 1 phonics screening meeting on Thursday.

If you were unable to attend the powerpoint and details are here:

phonics screening meeting for parents thumbnail of Year-1-Phonics-Screening – parent guide

Here are some further resources for you to use to support your children at home.

If you have any further questions please ask your class teacher!

Phonics Screening

Here are the details from the phonics screening meeting and powerpoint that was shown on Thursday.

If you have any questions please ask your child’s Class Teacher!