English is at the heart of our curriculum, and writing is a key focus. Through writing, children learn to communicate ideas clearly, creatively and effectively. At our school, we follow the Literacy Counts scheme, which provides a carefully sequenced approach to teaching writing through high-quality texts.
The National Curriculum for English states that a high-quality education in English should teach children to speak and write fluently, so that they can communicate their ideas to others and participate fully as members of society. Using Literacy Counts, children are immersed in rich, engaging stories and texts that inspire them to write for different purposes and audiences. The scheme also builds a strong foundation in grammar, spelling and vocabulary, giving children the tools to craft their writing with accuracy and flair.
Our writing curriculum, delivered through Literacy Counts, aims to ensure that all children:
In this weeks Drawing Club we have enjoyed lots of lovely learning around the story. We had beach style crafts, finding odd numbers and writing in the snail slime! We write our own messages to “Save the Whale!”.
Today, we have been looking at the story of Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty. We looked at some of the illustrations and describe what we could see in them.
Today in class we were given different clues and worked in groups to develop our verbal predictions. We used sentence starters to come up with detailed explanations of what we predict and when new clues were introduced we amended our predictions. We also used the new clues to back up some of our earlier predictions as well. Some of are predictions were:
“I predict the suitcase shows someone is going travelling or on vacation.”
“I thought the character could be a child because of the teddy bears and the wellies. They might be going on a big trip and need the things they like.”
“After seeing more clues I now definitely predict they are travelling as the first clues showed a suitcase and the second ones show a passport and money. I have used these things when I go on holiday.”
Today, we role played the story of The King Who Banned the Dark. We acted out each page and explained how the people might have felt.
Daffodil class returned today to find a new provision area to investigate. We discussed how it might link to our new text and who the boat might belong to. We also discussed what the character would be like.
We have loved drawing club this week, the book has inspired lots of lovely role play and retelling of the story. We have ordered size and built our own houses.
Today year 4 have begun to write their invention narratives using the life of Jacques Cousteau as inspiration. The stories are considering how to use pronouns to replace nouns and using feeling to show what the characters body is doing to react to those feelings.
Some of our little learners are really enjoying our new text ‘Hermelin’ and recreated a mouse bed, mouse-sized invitations, notices and street signs. Well done!
We have started reading our new text ‘The Errand’, which features a boy who works for a witch. He goes into the dangerous Whispering Woods. To help us write a setting description, we physically became the woods. The children created some lovely images.
In English, we watch the video about Alma and her visit to a very special toy shop. We used this video to predict what happened next.
We returned to class today to discover an abandoned suitcase. We asked lots of questions and were extremely intrigued by the contents of the suitcase. We began to make predictions to who it might belong to and what this terms texts could be about.
In Sunflower Class we practise our letter formation in lots of different ways. Today we used paint to practise the ‘ee’ digraph.
Daffodil class are really enjoying learning about how we could move while hunting a wolf. We have practised wandering, stalking and slithering now we are looking at how we lurk behind an object.
During English today we were looking at writing in the report style for a newspaper. Before we completed the writing activity we worked in groups to act out and freeze in place to represent what was happening in the news report we had read.
The children in Reception are always working on their fine motor skills. This helps them to develop their writing skills by making their hands stronger.
We have come into class this morning and found a very interesting picture on our board. We then tried to independently write some words and sentences.
We received a very interesting package today, we have been discussing where it came from and even questioned the postman!
Someone in our class decided to dress up as the Night Gardener. I wonder who it is? He did a great job sneaking around without anyone seeing him cutting the trees!
In English, we did some Drama to help us remember the story we are learning about. Year 5 have read ‘Henry’s Freedom Box’ and today they dramatised the story of him escaping in the box. This is going to help them later on, when they write an autobiography on Henry.
Today, we used drama to retell the story of The Night Gardener. Some of us were trees, another person was William and some of us were people from Grimlock Lane. This will help us write lovely story setting descriptions.
Year 1 have really enjoyed practising reading some alien words this week by playing a really cool game!
Year 6 loved their No pen day experience, with lots of practical and computer based activities. From creating our plans for English on our chrome books to using multi-link cubes in maths to explore volume. It is to be continued after SATs.
Today, we brought some of the images of Shackleton Journey to life through conscience alley and freeze frames.
We used illustrations from our class reader Shackleton Journey written by William Grill. We had a lot of fun adding our own conversations, thoughts and ideas to these images.
Today, Sunflower class found some interesting items in our classroom. Inside there was a new book, Little Red. We looked at the first page illustrations and discussed it, asking questions and making predictions. We then acted out how Little Red would have felt walking through the woods alone.
Year 2 were learning to listen to instructions
Over the last couple of days we have been enjoying our poetry and spending time reading our favourite poems! #nationalpoetryday #nationalliteracytrust
We’re working so hard to develop our vocabulary knowledge ? today we have used dictionaries to discover the meaning of words
Today we continued to develop our vocabulary by using a thesaurus to find synonyms
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This week, Year 1 have been using the prefix un- to change the meaning of words. This has been the focus for our sentence accuracy, the children have done a great job! #stfinbarsenglish @LiteracyCounts1 @StFinbarsSch @JanJconley
Year 1 have had a problem with magic spiders. We wrote a class set of instructions – How to Catch a Spider. Last night we set a trap, it didn’t work! Today will write our own instructions to try catch the pesky spiders! #stfinbarsenglish
