Welcome!
On this page you will find:
- World Book Day 2023
- Author visits and workshops
- Our Reading and Phonics Curriculum Statement
- The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised curriculum progression for Reception and Year 1
- The Year 2 Reading Curriculum Overview
- Our Reading Progression Core Texts
- Our Writing Curriculum Statement
- Our Writing Curriculum Progression
- Information on how we promote Reading for Pleasure
On the drop down menu from our Parent page, you can find more detailed information for parents including videos about phonics, a jargon buster to help understand phonics and grammar and an overview of spelling. There are lots of ideas on how you can support your child with reading, phonics, spelling and handwriting.
World Book Day 2023
Author visits
We love to meet authors who share their work and inspire the children. Sometimes, this is virtual but more recently, we've been lucky to meet these people in person! In recent years, the children have worked with Claire Barker, Nick Sharratt, Rob Biddulph, Chloe Inkpen and Liz Pichon.
Each year, during the Autumn term, the Year 2 children take part in the Appledore Book Festival by attending a author workshop at Barnstaple Library. In the photo below, you can see Tracey Corderoy sharing a game based no her Shifty McGifty books.
In February, a group of children from across the school spent the morning with Clive Pig, internationally renowned storyteller. (See photos from the workshop below). They created their own stories. In the afternoon, Clive ran a storytelling workshop with the rest of the school. Enter text...
Reading for Pleasure at Pilton Infants' School
Our intent is that all children will leave Pilton Infants' School as confident, fluent readers, with a love of reading which they can take with them through their education and beyond.
Here are just a few of the ways we foster a love of reading:
- Our subject leader stays up to date on new titles through the subject leader briefing and her own love of books.
- Teachers model an enthusiasm for reading. We share and discuss books daily in all classes and members of staff also discuss their own love of reading out of school. Each week, we have a special Core Text assembly to promote the chosen texts from our reading curriculum.
- Each class has their own reading area. Each area will include well thumbed copies of old favourite books, as well as new, current writers. We have a very generous budget for buying new texts including some bought through fundraising by our PTFA and our local Usborne representative. For example, for World Book Day 2021, we ran a sponsored read. With the matched funding from Usborne, we were able to purchase nearly £600 worth of brand new books for the children!
- Through modelling by our members of staff, children learn how to select, respond to, revisit and explore books.
- Children in Reception and Year 1 (and in some cases in Year 2) have access at home to an e-book which is matched exactly to their phonics learning in school. All children have access to Shared Texts (which they can share with a grown up at home) and Take-home books which provide families with resources to share bedtime stories.
- We celebrate World Book Day each year and work with local book providers to source the free books for children who are unable to go and get their own books.
- We link with our local library to promote the Summer Reading Challenge, and each year, Year 2 visit the library and sign up for their own library card.
- We organise author visits or online workshops so that children can learn about and gain inspiration from real authors.
Each class has their own Reading for Pleasure book. This is usually sent home with a different child every night and they add to the book with a review or recommendation. Children then make recommendations to their classmates and swap books. This can be in the form of writing or a picture. You can see some examples of the reviews below.
World Book Day 2022
We wanted to promote the importance of bedtime stories so we invited everyone to come to school in their PJs, dressing gown and a cuddly toy. Throughout the day, children heard a range of stories from teachers across the school and all chose a book from our book sale.
Year 2 enjoyed a virtual class from Liz Pichon, author and illustrator of the Tom Gates books. They learned to create their own illustrations and also got some top tips on how to write and illustrate their own ideas!
