Literacy
The school follows the Literacy requirements outlined in the National Curriculum 2014. We believe that children interpret the world and communicate their feelings and thoughts to others through literacy. There are four main areas of the Literacy curriculum, which are detailed below.

Speaking and Listening
We encourage children to work collaboratively, sharing and discussing ideas, thus developing their ability to express themselves articulately, and to actively listen to their peers. Our curriculum provides the children with a range of opportunities to develop their communication skills. Drama is used extensively to enable the children to express themselves creatively and theatre companies visit the school to further enrich the curriculum.

Writing
All pupils are given the opportunity to develop the skills to write in a range of genres for various purposes and audiences. In planning our Literacy curriculum, we aim to inspire our children to write, building in time for them to write for sustained periods. We are constantly looking for ways to develop our thematic curriculum to provide pupils with opportunities to write through other subjects. We follow the cursive handwriting scheme which is started at the Infant School. A computer suite, as well as laptops and tablets, are available to teachers to develop the children’s study skills and information handling. Technology is also used to teach drafting and re-drafting techniques. At Greasby Junior School, we follow ‘Pathways to Write’.

Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling (GPAS)
Grammar is concerned with the way in which sentences are used in spoken language, in reading and writing. Sentences are the construct which help give words their sense. The purpose of grammar teaching is to enable pupils to become conscious of patterns of language which they can apply in their own work to enhance meaning. The purpose of punctuation is to clarify the meaning of texts. Readers use punctuation to help make sense of written texts while writers use punctuation to help communicate intended meaning to the reader. Accurate spelling and punctuation are vital to effective communication and are reinforced not only in Literacy, but across all curriculum areas. At Greasby Junior School, we follow the ‘Read, Write, Inc’ spelling programme which is an extension to the ‘Read, Write, Inc’ Phonics programme delivered at the Infants.

Reading
We want children to develop a love of reading and have been following the Accelerated Reader scheme since October 2017. Our data shows that, on average, the children’s reading ages have increased by twice the expected amount since the scheme was introduced. The children are encouraged to read at least 3 times at home each week and for 1.5 hours in school. After each book they read, they are required to take an on-line assessment: the result of which dictates the range of books they can then select from. Each half term the children take a more formal reading test which gives an updated reading age. In addition, our school library and our outdoor reading areas are available to all children to use throughout the week. Each year in the Autumn term, parents are invited to a ‘Reading Fair’ at school, where they can observe staff teaching reading. Video clips to help parents support their children with reading at home, are also available on the school website. At Greasby Junior School, in addition to using Accelerated Reader Scheme, we follow ‘Pathways to Read’ for our guided reading scheme.