Phonics and Early Reading
We teach phonics and early reading skills using the Read, Write, Inc. approach. You may have heard this referred to as Synthetic Phonics. Synthetic phonics is the breaking down of words into their separate sound components known as phonemes. Phonemes can consist of more than one letter for example ch, oo, er, igh etc. In our teaching we discuss elements such as:
Digraphs: these are two letters that make a single sound eg: ar, ee, ou etc.
Trigraphs are three letters that make a single sound eg: igh.
A grapheme is a phoneme written down.
Segmenting is where you break each word into its separate phoneme, for example ‘chop’ has 3 phonemes, ch/o/p.
Blending is simply putting those sounds back together to form a word.
Some words in the English language cannot be broken down into separate phonemes. These are known as tricky words and we teach the children to be able to read and know the whole word, for example, ‘said’ or ‘what’.
There are 3 sets of Speed Sounds which progress through the 44 phonic sounds. Once the children have Speed Sounds 1 they will start to use the Read, Write, Inc. reading and writing programme which incorporates: reading words, writing words and simple sentences. This progresses through from Red books to Grey books which the children should complete by Year 2. This is accompanied by Topic texts and story reading within the classroom.
This link will take you to the Read, Write, Inc. website where you can find more information and helpful hints.
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/
We teach phonics and early reading skills using the Read, Write, Inc. approach. You may have heard this referred to as Synthetic Phonics. Synthetic phonics is the breaking down of words into their separate sound components known as phonemes. Phonemes can consist of more than one letter for example ch, oo, er, igh etc. In our teaching we discuss elements such as:
Digraphs: these are two letters that make a single sound eg: ar, ee, ou etc.
Trigraphs are three letters that make a single sound eg: igh.
A grapheme is a phoneme written down.
Segmenting is where you break each word into its separate phoneme, for example ‘chop’ has 3 phonemes, ch/o/p.
Blending is simply putting those sounds back together to form a word.
Some words in the English language cannot be broken down into separate phonemes. These are known as tricky words and we teach the children to be able to read and know the whole word, for example, ‘said’ or ‘what’.
There are 3 sets of Speed Sounds which progress through the 44 phonic sounds. Once the children have Speed Sounds 1 they will start to use the Read, Write, Inc. reading and writing programme which incorporates: reading words, writing words and simple sentences. This progresses through from Red books to Grey books which the children should complete by Year 2. This is accompanied by Topic texts and story reading within the classroom.
This link will take you to the Read, Write, Inc. website where you can find more information and helpful hints.
https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/reading-schemes-oxford-levels/read-write-inc-phonics-guide/
Maths
Below you will find useful information, methods and examples of the way we teach maths here at Shipley.
The first booklet is all about Numicon, which is a concrete resource we use for the 4 maths operations: adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. This resource is first introduced in Reception but has a continued use throughout the school. The booklet explains this and has suggestions for its use at home.
The second booklet is our progression in calculation, which matches the White Rose planning the whole school follows. This sets out how we teach the 4 operations: adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing and how they progress through the years. There are examples and explanations of the methods taught at Shipley.
The first booklet is all about Numicon, which is a concrete resource we use for the 4 maths operations: adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. This resource is first introduced in Reception but has a continued use throughout the school. The booklet explains this and has suggestions for its use at home.
The second booklet is our progression in calculation, which matches the White Rose planning the whole school follows. This sets out how we teach the 4 operations: adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing and how they progress through the years. There are examples and explanations of the methods taught at Shipley.
Music and Sport |
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Music has an important role in Shipley School as we strongly believe it encourages self-discipline, motivation and self-esteem, and gives children tremendous enjoyment.Every child takes part in regular singing, including the acts of worship in school and in the Church. We also take part in the annual Weald Music festival for Years 5 and 6. Performances by visiting musicians are a regular feature of school life.

Quality provision of PE is a high priority. The School has the School Games Gold Award. Teachers work alongside sports coaches and external providers to ensure that children are active and can develop their core skills and fitness for a healthy lifestyle. There are a wide range of after school clubs to support this, from ballet to mountain biking, lego to basketball, art to choir.
"The curriculum is effective. Pupils gain expertise in a broad range of subjects. No opportunity is missed to make connections between subjects and topics so as to deepen pupils' understanding ."
OFSTED 2018