Year Groups 

In Nursery, we are passionate about providing many interesting, exciting and purposeful engagements for mark making and writing through play. The learners are exposed to many opportunities to write such as; invitation writing, name writing, card writing and appointment cards in the role- play doctor's surgery. 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, playdough, chalking help to develop these fine motor skills. Gross motor skills are developed through climbing, sweeping, and creative movement. 

During our current unit of inquiry, how we express ourselves, learners have been singing songs and learning new rhymes. We have enjoyed listening to different percussion instruments, recognising them and moving our bodies to the beat. All of these skills support the development of the learner’s phonetic knowledge. In preparation for our Tea Party with Nursery families, the learners created personalised invitations for their family. 

On Wednesday, we welcomed families to celebrate our learning by hosting a Tea Party with ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. Learners spent the morning sharing their learning space with their families, the air was a buzz with construction, tiger stripe painting, shape collages, making tea at the water table and finished up with a shared picnic. It was wonderful to see so many happy faces sharing our learning journey with us.

Writing is such an exciting journey for Kindergarten learners. Over the course of the year we see our learners communicating more and more through writing. Of course, this is intrinsically linked with our phonics programme. We are learning new sounds every week and are becoming more and more skilled at blending these together when reading and 'sounding' out words using our growing phonics knowledge. 

Writing and phonics are evident everywhere in our Kindergarten environment. The adults incorporate these skills into the children's everyday play. This makes writing an authentic and meaningful experience for the learners. This week we received letters and notes from our class travel bear. The children were excited to respond to him through writing. They used their growing 'sound knowledge' to write back to him. Some learners even responded to his request and built him a 'bed'. Of course we needed to label his bed afterwards, What a perfect opportunity to practice writing those tricky b's and d's. It was almost as if our teachers planned it.....

In Year 1, we are passionate about instilling a love for reading and writing which learners will carry with them throughout their school journey and beyond. Phonics is a key skill to help learners develop their literacy skills. Using the Letters and Sounds programme, the learners are grouped according to a phase which focuses on sounds and spellings they are working on. Learners are continually assessed on both their decoding skills and spelling skills to help us track progress and develop learning targets personalised to each learner. Phonics  lessons are fully differentiated and the learners love working with different teachers and friends from other classes. We have so much fun thinking of creative words to reinforce phonetic knowledge, from writing in sand to water painting on the pavement to rainbow writing.

In our current Unit of Inquiry ‘People can apply their understanding of forces to invent and create’, the learners are exploring nonfiction texts. They are taking their roles as scientists VERY seriously! It is wonderful to see the learners confidently applying their phonics skills in their independent writing to carefully record their wonderings and observations.  Over the course of this unit, we will be learning how to write simple procedural texts and look forward to sharing this learning with you later in the term. 

Language Arts is one of the main components to our learners day. Made up of reading, writing, speaking, listening and phonics to name but a few, it is a huge part of their learning journey. Hands-on engagements give the learners opportunities to practise their skills and continue developing their knowledge and understanding. During phonics sessions the use of sound or word bingo, practising writing the sounds on small white boards or cut and paste activities help to reinforce and get the learners to consolidate their learning.  Through a transdisciplinary approach the learners are able to experience writing workshops linked to the current UOI’s. This term the learners have begun their inquiry into the unit Sharing the Planet, where they will be creating information reports. The development of researching skills to find information and reading for inference are to be explored. The current writing workshops have included making sentences fun by exploring the use of adjectives in their writing and the reasons why we use these ‘wow words’.

In Year 3, we have a consistent and exciting spelling and writing programme. For spelling, we use Words their Way sorts in our weekly spelling routine. This is based on a termly assessment that groups the learners based on spelling rules they are still developing. We have weekly spelling words that are either from their word sort or are connected to our new unit of inquiry. 

We have recently wrapped up our persuasive writing unit that was linked to the UN Global Goals and sustainable action. Learners presented arguments for why others should do more to support different goals, such as deforestation, plastic population and gender inequality. This was a perfect opportunity to work on the writing trait of organisation. Learners practised writing in paragraphs to order their writing with a persuasive introduction to hook the reader in. We are now beginning a unit around narratives. Learners have been exploring character descriptions, which will be shortly followed by settings. This will allow learners to have the tool kit necessary to write their own wonderful narrative piece!

Our weekly guided reading sessions, independent reading for pleasure time, opportunities to listen to others read, and activities that develop research skills support the development of comprehension skills. Reading skills such as predicting, making connections, drawing inferences and identifying key ideas when summarising are regularly used in Units of Inquiry to draw meaning from text.

Year 4 learners currently focusing on biographies. Learners are exploring ways to collect information about another person and are identifying the text features used in biographies written by others. Our Year 4’s are learning to organise information into a suitable text structure and are developing their sentence structure to express their information clearly. Our weekly Word Study lessons focus on developing learners’ knowledge of spelling, meaning and usage of words.

Our Units of Inquiry provide lots of opportunities to develop speaking and listening skills during collaborative activities as well as presenting their learning to others.,

Everyday learners are surrounded by a range of language and vocabulary. Every curriculum area has subject specific words that are constantly contributing to learner knowledge and understanding. 

In Year 5 our spelling programme encourages learning of spelling sounds and rules that support learners in their reading and writing. For spelling, we use Words their Way sorts in our weekly spelling routine. This is based on a termly assessment that groups the learners based on spelling rules they are still developing. Lessons include explicit teaching of the spelling focus and a word sort. Learners then complete an activity that allows them to apply the word or dig deeper into the letters and sounds. Discussions about words encourage connections to spellings we already know and new inquiries. 

In our Reading programme, learners are constantly identifying 'treasure' or 'WOW' words that they find interesting, unfamiliar or just love them! Currently learners are being 'Word Wizards' in Literature Circles, as they identify a word, find the definition and use it it a descriptive sentence. Understanding the words that authors use, helps us to be amazing writers ourselves. 

Weekly spelling words can also be connected to our new unit of inquiry. Our word lists are shared with families at the beginning of a unit of inquiry and teachers include these in the tuning in part of our new unit. In our How the World Works unit, learners identified words from the list that they knew the best and the least. Teachers were able to use this information to focus their teaching. Learners chose a word, found out the meaning, designed a picture or diagram and wrote it in a sentence. They then shared this on a poster and we displayed them in our space. This provided a resource for everyone to refer back to. 

We also share our unit of inquiry vocabulary with our BML teachers. They support learners by using these words in their programme activities and helping learners to understand these words in English and their own language. This knowledge gives our BML learners the confidence they need to participate in activities and discussions with their peers. 

Our 'How the world works' inquiry continues to roll on. 

Last week, the learners had an amazing time learning about energy transformation and waves using gummy bears. The hands-on experiment involved observing how wave energy can be transferred in a very visual (and yummy) way. It was a fun and interactive way for the kids to understand these important concepts which we then incorporated into the scientific process.

The gummy bear experiment was not only a fun and interactive way for the kids to learn about energy transformation and waves, but it also allowed us to explore the important topic of data handling. During the experiment, the students recorded their observations and measurements, which helped them understand how to collect, organise, and analyse data. By analyzing the data they collected, they were able to draw conclusions and make connections between their observations and the scientific concepts they learned. This experience emphasized the importance of accurate data collection and analysis in scientific experiments and helped the students develop their data handling skills.

In Language Arts, we have explored the exciting world of renewable resources and the importance of sustainability. The children learned about a specific type of renewable energy technology and identified the positive and negative considerations. During this inquiry we developed our presentation skills, as well as improving our vocabulary and work knowledge by developing our own glossaries. 

Next week we have a fantastic opportunity as we will be visiting the secondary school science labs to explore the wonders of chemical energy. They'll get a chance to see how chemical reactions can produce energy, and they'll be able to witness the results first-hand. Be sure to pack your lab coats and safety glasses for what is sure to be an amazing learning opportunity.