At Barwic Parade, we are passionate about reading and want our children to develop that passion too! Our phonics journey starts straight away in Reception, where we enjoy key stories together  every day and share books with the children to enjoy at home with their families every week. 

As well as daily face to face at the beginning and end of each school day, we communicate with our parents through our private class Facebook group and Marvellous Me online . We share regular photos and videos of what we have been doing, as well as links to great online activities and resources that we use in class. We also share  tips and strategies for supporting reading and other learning opportunities at home too. 

We have a phonics party in the first term and further reading cafes across the year to show our parents exactly how we teach phonics, including the importance of  pure sounds articulation.  This also explains how we match our reading scheme books exactly to their child's phonic knowledge, why we need to re-read books a few times, demonstrated how to support their child's independent reading and  ideas for using at home which help practice the letters and sounds that we cover.  Any parents wishing to keep updated on how to support reading 1:1 at home are welcome to drop in to observe us reading with their child. 

All of our children have a planner in which we record which reading book they have been given; the sounds they are working on next and more tips for supporting this at home. We expect all children to read for 5 minutes every day and for the parents to initial in the planners each time this happens. For every 25 reads together at home, each child receives a special reading certificate! 

In our planners we also record when children are on gold, with a gold star sticker and why they have achieved this.

Our school motto is 'Reading makes us brainy!'