Roundswell Community Primary Academy
Tel: 01271 445111
Intent
At Roundswell Community Primary Academy, we believe that learning to read is the gateway to a world of knowledge, imagination, and opportunity. That’s why we place early reading at the heart of our curriculum, ensuring every child becomes a confident, fluent reader who enjoys books and stories.
We follow the Read Write Inc. Phonics programme to deliver high-quality, systematic phonics teaching from Reception. This proven approach helps children learn to read quickly and accurately, while also developing their comprehension and love of reading.
Our phonics and early reading provision is shaped by our school values:
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Respect – We value every child’s voice and celebrate their reading journey.
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Responsibility – Children take ownership of their learning and progress.
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Collaboration – We work together—staff, pupils, and families—to support every reader.
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Curiosity – We nurture a love of stories, language, and learning.
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Positivity – We celebrate effort and progress, building confidence and self-belief.
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Perseverance – We encourage children to keep going, even when reading feels challenging.
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Ambition – We set high expectations for all learners.
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Aspiration – We inspire children to see themselves as successful readers and learners.
Through daily phonics lessons, children learn to decode words, build fluency, and develop comprehension skills. Carefully matched storybooks ensure that every child experiences success and enjoyment in reading.
We are committed to ensuring that every child learns to read. For those who need extra support, we provide timely, targeted interventions to help them catch up and thrive.
By the end of Key Stage 1, our goal is for all children to be confident, enthusiastic readers, ready to embrace the wider curriculum and a lifelong love of reading.
This is Brady, the Reading dog at Barnstaple Library who enjoys listening to stories read by all the children!
Thank you to all the families who raised money in our recent Sponsored Read. We managed to raise over £400 and get lots of new books for our school. Thank you to Leah, our local Usborne rep who made this possible.
There are lots of great websites to help parents support their child at home with their phonics journey:
Please find websites and games below to support reading and phonics at home:
We are encouraging children to read each book bag book three times. This is to encourage them to become more fluent with the words and then focus on reading like a ‘storyteller’ e.g. using expression as well as gaining a good understanding of what is happening in the story. It is difficult for a child to focus on the meaning of a story while they are decoding the words so as their speed of reading increases so does their ability to focus on the content of the story.
Learn to read accurately by age six… read to learn for the rest of your life.
Barnstaple Library have regular reading challenges for children of all ages. They encourage children to read with various activities, stickers, certificates, competitions and more! They have a great range of books, fiction and non fiction, to get children interested in reading and its free!
Above are some of our children who have completed the library reading challenge during the summer holidays. Well done to them all! We are very proud of you.
Our School Reading Culture
Reading to your Pets Challenge!
We recently had a new reading challenge, 'Read to your Pets'. Thankyou to everyone who sent us pictures of their children and pets! It's lovely to see so many children engaging in reading challenges.
Reading Outdoors Challenge
We recently had a new reading challenge, 'Reading Outdoors'. Thankyou to everyone who sent us pictures of their children reading outdoors!
Visiting authors
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Year 1 were enthralled by the author Duncan Beedle, from the Appledore Book Festival. He taught them how to draw a badger and then each took a book home!
Chloe Inkpen shared her story 'Fred' and taught the children to draw the main character.
Suzie Laverty created fantastic binoculars with the children!
Neill Cameron worked with our older children to create comic style cartoons.
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