"Grammar is to a writer what anatomy is to a sculptor, or the scales to a musician. You may loathe it, it may bore you, but nothing will replace it. Once mastered, it will support you like a rock."

Joy Chute

Phonics and Spelling

In Key Stage 1, we use the Monster Phonics spelling scheme. Throughout the programme, children learn to spell words by segmenting them into phonemes. The MP programme matches the EYFS framework and KS1 spelling curriculum, which starts teaching segmenting skills from the second week in Foundation. Year 1 teaches digraphs and trigraphs, including alternative graphemes, plurals, prefixes, compound words, common exception words and simple addition of vowel suffixes. Year 2 teaches further digraphs, trigraphs, consonant suffixes, contractions, possessive apostrophes, CEWs, and more complex spelling rules for adding vowel suffixes.

Key Stage 2 follow the National Curriculum spelling objectives using the Jason Wade spelling scheme. Children are given a weekly word list, which they are taught and encouraged to read, spell, define and use. As part of their spelling learning, children are also taught to identify reasons for misspellings; proof-read their spellings; recognise and use word origins, families and roots to build their skills; and use dictionaries and thesauruses.