In Nursery, we are passionate about providing many interesting, exciting and purposeful opportunities for mark making and writing through play. The learners are exposed to a rich variety of experiences, such as story writing, writing signs and labels for the roleplay areas and self registration. Our environment is set up to enable learners to independently access writing materials in all areas of learning. The resources selected are carefully chosen to ignite curiosity, experiment with and provide challenge.

A crucial stage of the writing process is developing learners’ gross and fine motor skills. Explorations such as writing in the sand, on large sheets of paper, in playdough, chalking and using tools at the tinkering tray help to develop these fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are developed through climbing, sweeping and even lying down to write on paper underneath the table top. It’s been wonderful to observe the learners developing a love of mark making and writing and we look forward to continuing this journey with them.

Phonics is one of the key skills we teach in Year 1 to help learners with reading and writing and we enjoy finding creative ways of teaching this in class. We continue the Letters and Sounds programme to teach and assess the learners. Throughout the year we have been teaching the learners how to apply their phonic knowledge to both reading and writing.

Now we are in Term 4, we are encouraging the learners to challenge themselves even further by incorporating phonic activities during different parts of the day as well as within our Language Arts Programme. This includes morning challenges as they arrive into the class space each day, such as spelling a specific digraph (two letter sound) using magnetic letters or ‘rainbow writing’ which involves practising spelling using different coloured markers. Interactive activities such as these help embed their phonics even further, equipping them with the skills needed during reading and writing activities. Through the shared reading of Big Books the learners consolidate the high frequency words that they have learned throughout the year. We look forward to continuing to support the learners through these phonic engagements which will develop their love of learning and reading!

The Year 2 teachers are passionate about instilling a lifelong love of reading in our learners. It is exciting to watch the learners’ development as they start to transition from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’. Learners develop their decoding skills, fluency, expression and comprehension through reading circles, independent and partner reading activities. Regular Running Record assessments carried out 1 to 1 with their teacher ensure that every child's next steps are identified. It has been wonderful to see the learners taking more ownership by helping to set their own targets this year, and the pride they feel when they achieve these!

This week the learners are putting their reading skills into practise in Reader’s Theatre. They are working in groups to tell a variety of well-known Aesop’s Fables. This requires the learners to listen to others and to read with fluency and expression. We loved watching their confidence grow throughout the week and were so impressed with their wonderful 'performances'!

In Year 3, the reading programme continues to support learners on their journey from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’ and finally onto developing a lifelong love of reading. As a year group, we deliberately expose the learners to a range of fiction and non-fiction texts, and explicitly teach the skills needed to become fluent readers with a strong comprehension of what they have read. In order to do this, the learners participate in a variety of different reading activities from independent reading, shared reading, guided reading, literature circles and whole class read alouds. All of these components are integrated into Language Arts and Unit of Inquiry on a weekly basis. In focused lessons, we teach the comprehension skills of clarifying, questioning, predicting, summarising and inferring alongside strategies to help decode more complex words and language patterns to improve fluency. Learners are continually assessed on both their decoding skills and comprehension skills to help us track their progress and develop learning targets personalised to each learner.

It is exciting to watch the progress made in reading this year and to see many learners develop into passionate readers which we know builds their confidence and skills as writers.

While in Year 4 we have a strong focus on a wide range of literacy skills, including speaking, listening, viewing and presenting our ideas, reading is a key area of our Language Arts programme. Reading offers access to other subject areas, it provokes imagination, offers a window to people’s experiences and ideas and the world beyond the classroom.

Learners continue to refine their comprehension skills in order to gain a deeper understanding of the texts. Every week learners take part in ‘Guided Reading’ where they read aloud in small groups. And a discussion of the text is facilitated by a teacher. This helps to develop inferencing, making connections; predicting; visualising, synthesising as well as decoding and fluency and expression. Every day our learners have independent or partner reading time. Text from a certain genre are often reviewed and analysed by learners in order to find strategies for success in their own writing. Activities such as character studies, creating summaries, creating storyboards, producing mind maps are some of the many activities in Year 4 that help learners explore their books in more depth.

At this stage in the year, learners are becoming independent at choosing a suitable reflection activity to suit the genre of text they have read. Alongside this, our goal is for learners to enjoy reading and develop a lifelong reading habit.

This year, Year 5 learners have used the ‘Daily 5’ framework to develop increased agency in their English Language Arts learning. Daily 5 provides a focus on: Reading to Self, In-Depth Word Work, Work on Writing, Listening to Reading and Reading to Someone. Learners are encouraged to self manage, by choosing the order of activities to complete and using the success criteria for each activity. Teachers use this time to support individuals and groups of learners in areas of focus and need. Examples might include: analysing writing exemplars, guided reading lessons, conferencing or goal setting and reflection with the children.

The current contexts for learning in Daily 5 are integrated with our Unit of Inquiry central idea, ‘People can promote awareness through creative action’. Learners have had the opportunity to choose from four significant historical events. They have applied their research, thinking and communication skills through inquiry and sharing their learning in different ways. Learners have explored these events from different perspectives and made connections between action in the past and present.

As we continue our unit of inquiry exploring 'How the World Works', we are using our Language Arts as an opportunity to refine our ability to synthesise and summarise a text. Exploring the ways in which we generate energy, learners are utilising three complex scientific texts relating to renewable, non renewable and nuclear energy production. During the culmination of our unit next week we will be using our growing understanding to support our socratic discussions. During our conversations we will explore our new understandings and changing points of view as we look at potential future developments which will help to solve our energy challenges.