English and Maths are taught daily at Sunnyfields and we follow the National Curriculum guidance in both these areas. At Sunnyfields we believe that Mathematics and English lessons should be fun and rewarding for all children. As such we endeavor to make our work in these subjects engaging for all learners. 

Maths

Our curriculum is mapped by the White Rose Maths scheme of work. We focus on a progression from concrete resources, to pictorial representations and finally into the numerical abstract to aid our children’s conceptual understanding. As a result, we are seeing a growth in confidence in all our learners, especially in areas of problem solving and reasoning. When teaching maths, we provide opportunities for: individual work, paired work, and group work. Pupils are involved in a wide variety of mathematical activities. Maths ties into many subjects and children are given opportunities to apply and use maths in real contexts across the curriculum.

Our calculation policy can be found under the heading ‘Policies’ on the school website. It has been designed as a document between teachers and parents, to support the teaching of methods in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions. It gives clear guidance on how the children set out a range of calculations in each year group.

Online Maths Games

At Sunnyfields we subscribe to Times Tables Rockstars and Numbots. These are both brilliant websites which the children can use at home to support their learning.

TTRockstars is used in school by children from Year 2 to Year 6. The children are provided with a login to support learning at home. It supports them with learning quick recall of times table facts which supports many areas of maths.

https://ttrockstars.com/

For children in Foundation Stage 2 to Year 4 we subscribe to Numbots. This is a fun website which supports children in learning number bonds and addition and subtraction facts.  The children are provided with a login to support their learning at home.

https://play.numbots.com/#/intro

English

Writing

At Sunnyfields, in Early Years, Key Stage 1 and 2, we incorporate The Write Stuff model into the teaching of writing. Children are taught writing skills through studying a range of both fiction and non-fiction texts including teacher produced models. Children are encouraged and supported to develop their vocabulary through experience days and taught sessions, before observing expert, teacher modelling of the writing process and then producing their own example. This then leads into the children producing their own writing plan and independent piece showcasing their ability to write freely with confidence. Where possible writing is linked to the current topic. We use picture books and up-to-date novels across the school.  Challenging texts are chosen to ensure that children have an excellent model for their own writing.

During their time at Sunnyfields, children are exposed to a range of classic and contemporary poetry. They have the opportunity to use these poems as a model for their own writing.

Phonics

At Sunnyfields Primary we follow Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds scheme of phonics teaching. Each child in Reception and Yr1 has a daily, 30-minute phonics lesson, following the teaching sequence of revisit/ review – teach – practice - apply in the Little Wandle sessions.  Yr2, children access a balance of both phonic and spelling punctuation and grammar (SPAG) lessons based on their individual needs and attainment. Reception and KS1 children are taught as a whole class. Interventions are delivered by teaching assistants and overseen by the class teacher, to provide complimentary teaching. We use the Keep Up model from Little Wandle. 

Sessions are lively, fast-paced and fun. In a session, children are taught either phonemes/ digraphs/ trigraphs, high frequency and/or tricky words and these are consolidated through reading and writing. There are lots of opportunities to speak and listen, as well as to read and write the sounds. All children in Reception and Year 1 have a guided group read 3 times a week linked to the phonic phase they are working at. These three sessions develop the skills of decoding, prosody and comprehension. 

At the end of Year 1 children have to take the national Phonics Check which tests children’s phonic knowledge. Here, they are required to read real and nonsense words, applying the skills they have learnt. Ideally children will have completed and consolidated Phase 5 during Year 1 and Phase 6 during Year 2, so that they can focus more on higher-level comprehension using increasingly challenging texts. Any child that does not complete the phonics programme will continue learning phonics throughout Year 3/4 during interventions.

Reading

Teaching a child to read is vital. We use a range of strategies, in addition to phonics, such as a variety of decoding methods, teaching high frequency words through sight recognition, discussion through picture books and precision teaching interventions. 

Year 1 to Year 6 are taught reading comprehension through whole class reading. One to one reading occurs in every year group and vulnerable readers are identified in each class to ensure reading progression and a love of reading. During the reading sessions, there is an emphasis on vocabulary, the retrieval of facts and inference. Novels are used to teach reading as well as a range of non-fiction texts. These texts are carefully chosen to ensure that there is progression and challenge across the school. At Sunnyfields, we aim to develop a love of reading, so children are encouraged to read for pleasure at home and school. Teachers read a variety of high-quality texts to the children in our dedicated story time each day. 

Books are linked to the current phonics phase a child is working at and are organised in such a way that follows the progression of taught sounds in the Little Wandle phonics programme.