The National year of Reading 2026!

Here at Bishop Pursglove we are delighted to promote and take part in the National Year of Reading! Each half-term features a special book activity to encourage our students to 'Go All In' and read more. January saw us enjoying a book café. In this, the students tasted new genres of books and planned ideas for reading during this year. The genres were: wordless stories, nature non-fiction, emotional books, newspapers and magazines. This was followed by us inviting parents and carers to read and share books with the children in class. During this week, National Storytelling Week 2–8 February, the children also enjoyed reading to each other. March brought the exciting World Book Day in which we expanded our vocabulary by dressing up as amazing words in a 'Vocabulary Parade'. Following this event, we took the time to share the books that were voted as finalists in the Carnegie Illustration Award. We voted for our own favourite and considered how quality illustration enhances the written word. Leading up to summer, we promoted the Summer Reading Challenge 'Read to the Beat' to encourage everyone to keep reading for pleasure over the break. September finds us voting for Reader Leaders in class and celebrating National Poetry Day.

You are invited to join us for story time in class (3pm-3:30pm) on the following days:

Monday 19/10/26

Monday 7/12/26

Monday 8/2/27

Monday 15/3/27

Monday 24/5/27

Monday 12/7/27

Here’s to a great year of reading! Let’s GO ALL IN! Happy reading! 

At Bishop Pursglove, we are developing the oracy skills of our wonderful pupils. To continue this focus on speaking and listening, we are encouraging all children to talk in class and at home on a special topic.  Please see the small slips with conversation topics coming home with your child and encourage your family to have a chat. It's time to shine! 

Author, Philip Kavvadias, visited school to end SATs week 2025 with a treat. He spoke to the children about the love of reading and how he writes his own books. He asked for the opinion of the children for his illustrations and plot ideas for his next book, which was very interactive and fun. The session ended with the students asking him questions. The staff and Philip were very impressed with the listening and questioning skills of the children! 

Reading

Reading is a high priority at BPS as it underpins progress in all subjects. We want children to develop a lifelong love of reading and to feel inspired by a range of texts and genres. Children bring home high quality reading books from the Big Cat scheme, with interesting, relevant content across a range of genres. These are matched to their ability and the content is appropriate to each child's level. As well as this, they have access to two school libraries.

In school, children are read to by their teachers and enjoy a wide range of texts through Class Novels and Guided Reading. The local community has been involved in the purchase of many of these books to try and provide windows into the experiences of others and mirrors to help children view themselves and their families in the books they are reading. We see books as a fantastic way to broaden horizons, and use them as a way to enrich discussions on equality, human rights, the environment, diversity, disability and other topics relevant to today's changing world.

Early Readers are pupils at the early stages of their journey in learning to read. Our Early Readers use phonic decoding as their reading approach, identifying the sounds in words and blending them to read the words. We track children’s progress in reading carefully and children of any age can be identified as Early Readers. Our Early Readers read books carefully matched to their phonics knowledge and are supported to rapidly gain the phonics knowledge and skills to become fluent independent readers.

Phonics is taught daily in Reception and Year 1, using 'Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised'. More information can be found on their 'For Parents' page, including useful videos on how to pronounce each sound, and ways you can help at home. 

Children cover a range of different genres for writing through our Cornerstones topics. Grammar and punctuation are matched by class teachers in the different genres and children are expected to showcase this learning in their independent writing. Children can achieve mastery of different genres by revisiting them over their time at BPS.

In Reception and Year 1, the spellings of common and exception words and phonics based spelling patterns are taught through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. Spellings are taught using the Spelling Shed scheme from Years 2-6. Year 2 common exception words are taught in addition to the Spelling Shed lessons.

Spelling games are set through Spelling Shed to be practised as homework each week.