“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it – Toni Morrison
“Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body” – Brian Tracy
Reading
Reading is central to a child’s understanding of the school curriculum and is of vital importance in life. Fluent readers can access a full range of life experiences and can enjoy an amazing breadth of genres and writers. Learning to read is the most important thing your child will learn at Hensingham Primary School.
At Hensingham Primary School, we aim to develop a love and appreciation of reading which will stay with children for life. We hope to achieve this through careful planning and teaching using up-to-date strategies. Listening to a child read is simply not enough; rather we use high quality reading materials and resources within English lessons to provide high quality learning opportunities.
Good reading is an essential life skill.
Reading at Hensingham Primary School
Mirrors and Windows
We have created the HENSINGHAM MIRRORS AND WINDOWS collection of books that celebrate diversity.
MIRRORS– We hope that all of our children are able to see themselves in some books at school.
WINDOWS– We hope that all of our children are able to look out into the world and learn about as well as celebrate diversity.
Click here to find out more information.Â
Phonics
At Hensingham Primary School we use Read Write Inc Phonics (RWI) to give your child the best possible start with their literacy. We have put together a guide to how the RWI programme works together with some useful links.
Mrs Brotherhood is our Read Write Inc Lead Teacher, so if you have questions about RWI, contact school who can refer you to her. Please take the time to read the information as it will provide invaluable information as to how you can help and support your child in reading.
Read Write Inc (RWI) is a phonics complete literacy programme which helps all children learn to read fluently and at speed so they can focus on developing their skills in comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. The programme is designed for children aged 4-7. However, at Hensingham Primary School we begin the programme in Nursery and will continue teaching RWI to children beyond the age of 7 if they still need support in their reading.
RWI was developed by Ruth Miskin and more information on this can be found at
Phonics at Hensingham Primary School – Read Write Inc
RWI and The National Curriculum
Ten top tips for reading to your child
Once a child has mastered the mechanics of reading and can read independently, decoding, understanding and with fluency we continue to widen and strengthen their reading comprehension through the use of whole class reading.
Whole Class Reading
Whole class reading builds fluency, confidence, pace and enjoyment.
All classes from Year 1-6 access a daily whole class reading session predominately focused upon a novel study where they practise and embed the key reading content domain skills.
We regularly update our whole class reading texts to ensure that we have a range of modern, classic texts, significant authors as well as high quality literature from current authors.
Children access at least one non-fiction text per half term in their whole class reading sessions.
High quality teacher modelling of fluent reading and reading with expression ensure that children experience listening to a strong reader and develop expression and fluency in their own reading.
Each year group covers two ‘CET Texts’- these are year group specific texts that are covered across the whole of the trust.
Research shows that reading for pleasure is THE key indicator in raising attainment and a positive marker of pupils’ future success. All children take home a reading for pleasure text that they can share with an adult at home.
HPS Whole Class Reading Pathway Overview 2025-2026
Hensingham KS2 Reading Curriculum
Writing
Writing equips children with communication and thinking skills.
Writing expresses who we are as people.
Writing makes our thinking and learning visible and permanent and it fosters our ability to explain and refine our ideas to others and ourselves.
Here at Hensingham Primary School we passionately believe in the teaching of high quality writing opportunities, hooking children and allowing them to write for purpose and a range of audiences. We build on and refine skills across school and writing is celebrated. We begin our writing journey by exploring the reading phase, where we look at an example text and explore the features of the genre, before moving onto the gathering content phase, where we harvest vocabulary, ideas and features to use in our own writing.
Cross-curricular writing has an important place in our curriculum and is key to ensuring children can write for different purposes and audiences, building stamina and pace.
HPS Writing Long Term Plan 25.26
Handwriting
Our handwriting is taught using LetterJoin, a whole school handwriting programme and more information can be found using the link below. Handwriting is taught discretely, and as part of the English lesson, where appropriate.
Spelling
Another element of writing, is spelling, and here at Hensingham Primary School we use Spelling Shed, a complete spelling programme designed to meet the needs of the 2014 National Curriculum in a manageable way. Spelling Shed teaches spelling in a ‘little-but-often’ structure which allows children to revisit and review, learn new strategies and apply.
Oracy
Speaking and listening are fundamental to the teaching of English and permeates the whole curriculum – cognitively, socially and linguistically. We want our children to develop effective communication skills for the here and now and also in readiness for later life. We are committed to building and embedding a culture of oracy throughout our curriculum.
We will ensure that teachers and senior leaders are equipped with the skills to develop oracy for teaching and learning, to plan for talk across the curriculum and to elevate speaking beyond the classroom. By building a culture of oracy within our school, we want to develop our children’s confidence, spoken language and written outcomes across and beyond the curriculum.
Our aim is to enable the children to improve their levels of oracy so that they are express themselves clearly and are able to communicate effectively and confidently in front of any type of audience. These skills are being encouraged in every area of our curriculum as good oracy skills can enhance every type of learning including maths and science. A key part of oracy is for children to think carefully about the language they’re using, and tailor it to their subject, purpose and audience.
So much in life depends on being a good communicator, so it’s vital that children learn the importance of oracy from a young age.
