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At St Bartholomew’s, children are taught writing skills through studying a range of both fiction and non-fiction texts including teacher produced models.
In Early Years and Key Stage 1, children are encouraged and supported to learn texts by heart, before trying to innovate them and gradually apply more independent changes to the model until they can write freely with confidence. In addition, in Key Stage 1, picture books and topic work are used as a stimulus for writing.
In Key Stage 2, children are taught to write through Novel Study and links are made to non-fiction texts. All of their writing is inspired by texts and they have an equal balance between fiction and non-fiction texts. Challenging texts are chosen to ensure that children have an excellent model for their own writing.
Curriculum - English - Key Documents
Curriculum - English - Useful Links
Curriculum - English - Conjunctions & Sentences
In class 6, we have revisited conjunctions in English. We worked with our talk partners to write sentences with and, but and because.
Curriculum - English - Editing
Today we worked on our editing and redrafting skills. First we worked in pairs to edit a piece of work. Then we used the skill we had learnt to improve our own writing.
Curriculum - English - Story Time
This morning class 12 visited the library to listen to Mr Needham reading ‘The Twits’ by Roald Dahl. We had the opportunity to look at what has fallen out of Mr Twits beard and to look at the ‘wormy spaghetti’.
Curriculum - English - Reading Plus
Class 13 are developing their fluency and comprehension skills during their Reading Plus sessions in school. As you can see from the videos the reading window encourages them to read at a certain pace, this increases/ depending on the ability of the child. After they have read they then get multiple choice comprehension questions to answer to check for their understanding. All children can access this program from home too.
Curriculum - English - Writing
It has been lovely watching class 10 to support each other while editing their work. We talked about how we each have different strengths and how we can support each other’s learning. We then helped each other add expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials to our writing, as well as checking spelling errors. It is fantastic that we are able to work so well as a team.
Curriculum - English - Library Story Time
This week class 13 have had their story time in the library with Mr Waters. The story was about a man that walked between two towers, they discussed a how courageous he was. The children loved joining in with props and acting out the story.
Curriculum - English - Word Mats
Today in English class 13 the children have been creating word mats for their scary story writing. They have loved ‘stealing’ words and phrases from various scary stories we have read.
Curriculum - English - Daniel Ingham-Brown Visit
The famous author Daniel Ingram-Brown visited years 5 and 6 this week. He has published numerous books such as Bea's Witch. In the workshop the children became ghost hunters and collaboratively wrote a ghost character description and an island setting description. The children loved bouncing off each others ideas and imaginations. Daniel's visit inspired children to have a love of reading and writing for pleasure.
Curriculum - English - Poetry
This week class 4 have been learning about poetry. We read the story ‘Sparks in the Sky’ and talked about our experiences of Bonfire Night. The children then wrote their own poems about Bonfire Night.
Curriculum - English - School Day Sentences
In English, class 6 have been learning about the features of recounts. We worked with our partners to write super sentences about our school day. We will be using our new knowledge to write a recount of our trip to Skipton Castle.
Curriculum - English - Ghost Stories
A brilliant workshop in class 14 with the author Daniel. We created a great ghost story, all about a rapped spirit who was scared and alone.
Some great work and participation from all the class. Well done class 14, I hope it really helps with your writing over the next few weeks as you create your own scary story.
Curriculum - English - Library Story with Mr Waters
Class 14 really enjoyed our story with Mr Waters this week. He read a book all about a man who walked a tight-rope across the twin towers. He really brought the story to life with props and a short video trailer of the film! An amazing true story about an inspirational man! Thank you Mr Waters.
Curriculum - English - Big Book Bus Afternoon
A lovely break to read our class story: Attack of the Demon Dinner Ladies, in our Big Reading Bus. I think it’s going to be a rather silly story!
Curriculum - English - Newspaper Story
Class 17 enjoyed working in groups in English to create a newspaper story from a given headline. Children worked really well discussing different ideas and they then presented their newspaper stories!
Curriculum - English - Reading Plus Assessments
Children in years 5 and 6 have been completing their assessments on Reading Plus to determine their starting points on the programme. Children will then use Reading Plus in timetabled sessions and also at home.
Curriculum - English - Reading Plus
Class 11 have completed their reading plus assessments this week ready to start their online lessons. They will get time in the school day to complete these lesson to help them improve their reading fluency and comprehension of a text.
Curriculum - English - Armley Mills Trip - Writing
During our visit to Armley Mills we visited the school room and practiced our handwriting using a pen, ink and blotting paper.
Curriculum - English - The Big Book Bus
Children in class 15 enjoyed the opportunity to read their library books at lunchtime on on the Big Book Bus. Each class in years 5 and 6 has a day timetabled to read on the Big Book Bus!
Curriculum - English - Our New School Library
We have an amazing new library in school!
Curriculum - English - Vowels & Consonants
Today we learnt how to use a or an correctly. We looked at vowels and consonants and matched up a or an with the words. We then put a or an in sentences.
Curriculum - English - Library Visit
Class 11 have been back to the library to choose a new book. Some of the children gave us a book review about the book they have read. We discussed how the library was set out and how they could use this to find a book they may like. They then took the time to read quietly.
Curriculum - English - Reading Stories
Class 10 had fun during our reading for pleasure time. It was lovely to see how many different choices children made. Some of us chose to read a story silently to ourselves, while others chose to share non-fiction books with each other and swap information. Some of us even used clues from a text to answer a crossword! It was fantastic to see so many children enjoying reading.
Curriculum - English - School Library Visit
Class 14 really enjoyed their first library time today. They explored and each chose a book to read. I look forward to the next session, when the children will be able to share what they have read with the rest of the class and maybe pick a book that has been recommended by someone. Great work class 14, well done.
Curriculum - English - Conjunctions
In class 6 we have been learning about the conjunctions 'and' and 'but'. We linked our learning to our book, 'Rapunzel' by writing compound sentences to compare food we do and do not like.
Curriculum - English - The School Library
Class 9 visited the library yesterday. All the children had chance to look around and choose a book to borrow from the library.
Curriculum - English - Our School Library
Class 11 enjoyed their first trip to the library. They were able to choose either a book to suit their reading abilities which, some, will be able to take home and enjoy. They also had the opportunity for some quiet reading time in the library.
Curriculum - English - James Nicol Visit
Today we were visited by James Nicol in our beautiful new library who shared his books with us and told us how he came up with all of his wonderful ideas. He shared pictures of his life and told us how they influenced his characters and plot lines.
Curriculum - English - Charles Dickens
We have been working collaboratively to answer retrieval questions about Charles Dickens, who wrote Oliver Twist. In our groups of 3, we each had a different section of information about his life such as his childhood or other jobs that he had. We had to work together to find the answers to each question, which was tricky at times because we had to work out who had that bit of information!
Curriculum - English - Characters
Class 16 have been looking at how characters feel in the text they are reading. They have been plotting the characters emotions on a graph and then completing sentences justifying their reasons.
Curriculum - English - Handwriting
Mrs Dyer is very impressed with the attitude and dedication of some boys in Class 15 who are working hard to improve their handwriting. Well done.
Curriculum - English - The Titanic Book
Class 16 enjoyed reading the opening chapters of ‘I survived the sinking of the Titanic, 1912.’ Children used their inference skills to explain why characters might have behaved as they did and children also highlighted unfamiliar words and used the text around the words to explain the meaning of the highlighted word.
Curriculum - English - Author Visit
Year 2 had an author visit. They listened to a twisted fairy tale by Bethan Woollvin, learnt about the process of writing and illustrating a book and learnt how to draw the characters. We will be continuing to do work on her version of Rapunzel in class. We had a great time it was so exciting to meet a real author.
Curriculum - English - Alphabet Puzzle
Some children in class 3 decided to try the alphabet caterpillar puzzle today. Myself and Miss O'Brien are very impressed with the teamwork they showed to complete it.
Curriculum - English - Oliver Twist Vocabulary
Class 11 worked in their collaborative pairs to find new vocabulary in a chapter of Oliver Twist. We then discussed the new words and what we thought they meant by reading the sentence they were in.
Curriculum - English - Imaginary Castles
Children in class 5 worked in groups to label parts of an imaginary castle. They used their knowledge of non-fiction texts to understand labels and how they are used.
Curriculum - English - The Highway Rat
Class 3 have loved learning about the highway rat this week. Some children even drew their own fantastic pictures of him.
Curriculum - English - Writing & Editing
We have been learning how to edit writing. We worked in pairs to improve a passage using CUPS (Capitals, Understanding, Punctuation, Spelling). We talked about ways to spot errors and spelling strategies we can use to help us.
Curriculum - English - Castles
Children in class 5 have used the vocabulary they have learnt in English to label their own castles. They have worked together to build different castles and use words such as ‘moat’ ‘draw bridge’ ‘tower’ ‘portcullis’ and ‘gate house’. Well done!
Curriculum - English - Pirate Poems
Class 7 performed their own pirate poems. They learnt about riddles, practiced and wrote their own before getting into the pirate spirit and performing them on pirate day. We hope you like them and can guess what we were describing.
