The Downs 
Reading and phonics
Our readers learn to enjoy, experience and escape through diverse literature. Our mission is to foster a love of reading in every child by creating a vibrant reading culture where books are valued, shared, and enrich our whole school themes. Texts are explored using phonics and our reading skills, which are embedded across all year groups, ensuring a consistent and progressive approach to reading development. Our children leave us as confident, fluent readers who can understand, question, and explore the world through words and will embrace a lifetime of learning and discovery.
The children use the reading skills cards each reading session to focus their learning and help them understand the different components of the reading journey.
How can you support your child with reading?
Our helpful guides can be downloaded to give parents/carers tips on how to support their child with their reading journey at home.
Reading with my child in year R, 1 and 2
Reading with my child in year 3 and 4 Reading with my child in year 5 and 6
World Book Day 2025
This year, we focused on traditional tales and the children created some wonderful artwork based on tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Little Pigs.
Here are some examples below:
World Book day 2024
World Book Day 2023
We celebrated World Book Day with an entire weeks worth of activities! Children visited the book fair with their families, they were able to take part in a Book Swap Shop, enter a 'wooden spoon character' competition and dress up as a word!
Here are some of the staff's favourite stories....
World Book Day stories from our staff
World Book Day 2022
Curriculum
More information about our reading curriculum
Ebook access:
Little Wandle:
3 I's for Reading Phonics