Intent

Children’s social and economic backgrounds are a precipitating factor for a large proportion of

speech and language needs within the school. “Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, storytelling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.”

Super 6 was created to ensure children were experiencing a breadth of books that challenge and develop children’s curiosity and understanding of the world with the child’s experience always remaining central to the thinking of every practitioner.

Using the Super 6, the curriculum will be ambitious and careful sequenced to help children to build their learning over time. Each stage of development will have their own Super 6 in recognition that 3 and 4 year olds learn differently to 10 year olds. Super 6 categories change when children are in Year 2 to ensure children are being challenged; non-fiction and poetry are taught through whole class reading sessions.

All Super 6 books will be shared with parents enhancing strong and respectful partnerships. These books are the reading rites of passage that will pave the way for our children to access further great literature that lies ahead in their lives, as we aim to grow a love of reading within them. 

Implementation 

Our Super 6 is used to ensure the children are experiencing a range of tales and stories during their time at Shakespeare Primary School. Effective pedagogy is a mix of different approaches; rigorous monitoring of children’s Characteristics of Effective Learning, Ferre Leavers, schemes of play and children’s interests are used to plan the upcoming project to ensure maximum engagement and challenge for the children.

All Super 6 strands follow the threads of high-quality traditional tales. At Shakespeare Primary School all Super 6 titles have been carefully selected based on the demographic need and gaps identified within our community and cohorts of children. Children starting at Shakespeare Primary School typically have a low starting point particularly in Understanding the World and Communication and Language. Picture only books were implemented across age groups to promote oracy and language development. Multi-cultural and PSED were also a key strand to ensure wider world topics were explored with the children. 

Each half term, we will explore these books through whole-class reading sessions, which will provide the children with a broad range of rich opportunities and experiences: 

• To read complete books, which are both suitable and appropriately challenging for their age.
• To become immersed in rich dialogue around the core themes that each book presents.
• To be exposed to a breadth of genres and authors, in order to support their independent book choices.
• To further deepen their ability to recognise and appreciate exemplary examples of writer’s style, before exploring and utilising such techniques within their own writing. 

Impact

Children make better than good progress in all areas of their learning. Children consistently make better than good progress in their language development. Children are consistently challenged in all stages of their time at Shakespeare Primary School.

These books will stay with the reader forever; these books are life-changers. Overall, we aim for our children to grow a love of reading, which will support them in accessing and fully understanding a range of texts both confidently and competently.