English at Pittington

More fabulous English from across the school 2012-2022…

Pittington Primary children are back in full flow and raring to go with our carefully planned reading and writing curriculum after the turbulent times of Covid.

Our reading team have been out in force again delivering whole school assemblies and setting challenges for the children. Each member of staff is the face of a different question domain and is used to help the children understand and tackle the array of comprehension questions thrown their way.

As always, the curriculum is brought to life through engaging texts and imaginative teaching. The children in year 2 woke to find a ticket to The Polar Express after studying the book at Christmas and spent a day travelling the world with linking their geography learning on the continents with their history work on George Stephenson and steam engines. After reading The Tiger Who Came to Tea, our children in reception wrote invitations inviting the tiger to join them for afternoon tea in class. Their writing was so good that he came and enjoyed the feast they had prepared using all of their food technology skills in DT.

World Book Day this year had the theme ‘Curl up with a book’. Our younger children brought in a favourite bear to read stories to, while our older children enjoyed setting up their own slumber parties.

Our curriculum gives the children opportunities to read widely and experience writing for many different purposes. Our Year 5 children spent a week reflecting on their reading journeys throughout their time at Pittington and were tasked with writing a speech to persuade other children and adults to pick up a book, whilst explaining their own thoughts and feelings on how important reading is to them. The following video features one of our wonderful writers – I challenge you not to be blown away by this young man…

Mrs Emmerson is busy putting together a new pupil voice group who will be her trusted advisors in school. The ‘English Ambassadors’ will have input into events and resources for English and help staff to understand the needs and views of the children. Watch this space for their first project coming very soon.

Summer Term 2021

A school year like no other but Pittington Primary is still standing and the pupils and staff are just as hard-working as ever! We culminated a very busy term of English learning with a fortnight of reading, learning, analysing and writing poetry. Each class from Nursery to Year 5 recorded a performance for everyone to share.

Nursery

Nursery have been learning about rhyming and rhythm within their phonics work and have shared one of their favourite poems ‘I had a little turtle’.

Reception

Reception have chosen to share a poem by Michael Rosen called ‘Welly Boots’. He is a much-loved author in our school and the children have read several of his stories and rhymes throughout their time in our EYFS.

Year 1

In year 1 we have been learning a poem about the seaside called “Seaside Things”. In history we have been learning about Grace Darling and all of our English work this term has linked to this and the seaside. The children had great fun learning this poem and thinking of actions that would go with the different lines. We also noticed that our poem has pairs of words that rhyme throughout. We hope you enjoy our performance.

Year 2

With hope in our hearts Year 2 have been learning the words to ‘Three Lions’. We have really focused on using expression to put across the meaning of the words and show our understanding. Hopefully you’re watching this and celebrating as it was recorded before the final…hopefully it’s home now!

Year 3

Our year 3 children have been learning a poem linked to their science work on plants and growing. We often link subjects together to help us remember new vocabulary and facts. See if you can pick up some information from their performance.

Year 4

The poem Year 4 learned this term was ‘These Are the Hands’ by Michael Rosen. It was written to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the NHS and there was no better time to celebrate the importance of what their staff do. The class explored the features of rhyme, syllable pattern, repetition and the structure of each verse. They wrote their own verses to fit within the poem with tremendous results and finally worked in groups to independently decide how best to perform the poem.

Year 5

This term’s poetry focus was ‘From a Railway Carriage’ by Robert Lois Stevenson.  As you will see we have certainly been developing our recall skills, learning poems by heart. The children were brilliant at the performing aspect adding actions and expression. Enjoy!

Spring Term 2021

Nursery

We have continued to enjoy our weekly letters and sounds work and have progressed to phase 5 in our phonics.  We have all enjoyed learning to clap and tap out the syllables in words and have become confident in recognising rhyming words in stories.  Some of us are beginning to continue a rhyming string of words too.  We have played a range of games such as ‘Rhyming Soup’ and ‘Tony the Trains Busy Day’.  All children have enjoyed listening to the initial sounds in words and making up funny sentences and rhymes using alliteration.  We have continued to enjoy a range of books our favourite was ‘The Three Little Pigs’.  We were able to sequence the pictures from the story and retell the events in the correct order.  Some of us even chose to act out the story with our friends.  The children in Nursery joined in with World Book Day celebrations by talking about their favourite book and creating a picture of their favourite character.

Reception

Our focus is all about words! We have been developing our blending and segmenting skills to read and write words that can be sounded out, words that can’t (tricky words) as well as learning about how words fit into sentences! We have been putting our own ideas into sentences and we are beginning to identify where finger spaces need to go. We have also been looking at words that rhyme and extending our vocabulary through learning about new words from nursery rhymes.  During lockdown we adapted our daily planning to coincide with the whole school approach for our home leaners.  Each day parents would have a detailed plan of what to deliver at home along with resources attached and example videos for phonics and handwriting.   The plans included reading, phonics, fine motor and writing.

We held ‘class chats’ vis Teams which included a story sessions and book discussions.  The same planning was delivered in school to coincide with expectations for home learning as this ensured that those children who were in school for only part of the week continued the pace of learning.  

Year 1

During lockdown in year 1 we did lots of work with our writing and presentation both in school and at home. One genre that the children really enjoyed learning about was reading and writing instructions. We were able to complete activities both in school and at home to help us with our writing. We followed a two week teaching sequence where we looked at reading different instructions and answering questions using our reading team. We then sequenced instructions and learnt that they need to be written in a particular order for them to make sense. We then had a go at reading and following instructions to make bird feeder treats. This was timed perfectly to fit in with the RSPB’s Big Bird Watching Weekend. We then went on to look at key features of instructions and learnt all about imperative verbs and how important they are in instructional writing. We had a go at spotting these in instructions and acted them out too. The fun part of the teaching sequence was making a yummy jam sandwich before completing our own instruction leaflet for making one. The children both in school and at home produced some amazing work and even went on to read other instructions to make delicious cakes.

Phonics

In year 1 phonics plays a very important role in learning to read and this was no exception during lockdown. Mrs Rowell recorded daily phonic videos to send home to the children at home so we could learn our phase 5 sounds. We also sent home games and activity videos to help parents at home teach their children to correct sounds. Here are two examples below.

Year 2

Year 2 worked so hard during lockdown both in school and at home. We found ways to keep going with all areas of English and had lots of fun with it too. We used websites and games to support our phonics learning, Practised letter formation daily, followed videos sent home from school, wrote stories, poems, letters and instructions and read, read and read some more! As well as using Rising Stars our online reading resource daily, the children also read George’s Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl using an audio book with text. Lots of our writing and word processing work was centred around this and coming back together at the end of the term to share learning from both home and school was very special. Well done my little Year 2 Lockdown Crew. I’m a very proud teacher.

Year 3

Every day for the first eight weeks of this half term, children who were home learning received a daily video up to ten minutes in duration.  It displayed the same screen that was being used in the classroom with activities and explanations for handwriting, phonics, spelling, reading and writing.  Key concepts about letter formation, phonemes, graphemes, blending and segmenting were reinforced each week and modelled for both child and the supporting adult.  Supplementary websites, copies of the table top resources and images from classroom working walls were shared with those learning at home.

In the classroom, we followed the same videos as those being viewed at home when learning about aspects of poetry, narrative and information text layout using the Oxford Owls and Rising Stars websites to support the children in understanding the features of the texts being practised.

 Year 4

One of the challenges faced from home learning was adapting the curriculum so the children at home could enjoy the same activities as those in school. The first issue was that our class book we had been reading was not available to everybody at home so our solution was to choose shorter class texts using our online reading resource ‘Rising Stars’. One book we read both at home and in school was ‘Treasure Island’. This was a super resource for both comprehension questioning, developing our understanding of first person narratives and writing a sequel to Treasure Island in the same first person narrative style. Children spent time planning their stories, describing characters and settings, practising how to correctly punctuate dialogue and eventually writing their stories. There were some great efforts at home and school that Robert Louis Stephenson would be proud of himself!

Year 5

In Year 5 we have altered our text focus area during the lockdown period but have not altered the writing focus areas and have been able to access online texts to achieve this. Through our use of ‘My Rising Stars’ the class have been able to access a range of different texts including information texts, for our travel text focus, and story texts , such as ‘The Time Machine’ and ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ for our focus upon narrative.  This has enabled the home learning to mirror the learning of the children who were in school during this period.

The English lessons were also split into key sections : handwriting, spelling, reading and writing to help faciliate the move to home learning. Children at home were given access to supporting learning videos which were recorded in the classroom to help with this.

During our focus upon travel texts, we explored both persuasive and informative writing and how the two different focuses could be combined. As we are learning about South America, we composed our own travel texts about Brazil. Also, as seen as their teacher would really like a visit into space, we wrote a travel text about a space hotel on the Moon. Our previous learning in science really helped us with this.

We have also explored narrative writing and the development of characters within this. Our use of the ‘Time Machine’ as a text really helped and both myself and the children deduced and predicted – no reading ahead – throughout the story. Where those Morlocks the evil characters? This was a book that we really enjoyed and allowed the children (learning at home and at school) to produce some super writing about.

For World Book Day, children brought a book by a favourite author into school and shared the opening chapter with their classmates. Several children then commented on how they would like to further enjoy some of the texts which were used.

Our poetry focus was ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ by William Wordsworth.  We used this to explore the features of poetry such as personification. Children at home were asked to learn the poem off by heart, just like we did in school.  We even had a class recital during a ‘Teams’ meeting.

Year 6

Y6 have been studying 2 texts this term which was a change in plan due to lockdown.  These books were online so the children learning at home could follow the same learning journey as those children who were in school.  The first text was a non fiction book about China and we used this to delelop our persuasive writing techniques.  The second text was about the life and works of Shakespeare but we usesd this to develop a deeper understanding of Macbeth and wrote events from different characters’ perspectives.  We also wrote newspaper articles based upon Macbeth.

For World Book Day we dressed up with a nostalgic theme and thought about our favourite story books form when we were younger.  Children who were learning at home were also invited to join in. Children in class also enjoyed reading their books to the rest of the class and in the afternoon, Y6 volunteered to read their stories to children in Reception via Teams.

Our poetry focus was sunset by Mary O’Neil.  We used this to explore metaphors and personification. Children at home were asked to learn the poem off by heart, just like we did in school.  They were then asked to record themselves performing it and send it in for the children in school to watch.  Those working in school did the same and we shared our performance with the home learners. Watch some of us perform it here:

Autumn Term 2020

So much learning and fun in English this term in school after lots of time at home trying to learn remotely it is nice to be back in our classrooms doing what we all love. Please enjoy a snapshot of what has been going on from Nursery to Year 6.

Nursery

In Nursery we have a ‘book of the week’, each week we share a new book, sometimes fiction and sometimes non-fiction and base our English work around it.  We have looked at lots of different books including traditional tales and rhyming books.  The children’s favourite so far has definitely been ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’.  They enjoyed the rhythmic and repeated nature of the book as well as the accompanying actions and loved watching and listening to the author Michael Rosen read it on our whiteboard.  We have looked at the front cover, illustrations and print in books and talked about the characters and plot as well as beginning to predict the story ending.

In our reading area the children are enjoying exploring familiar books and are now able to use pictures to retell a story and are even starting to sort the pictures into the beginning, middle and end of the story. 

Everyone has been working hard to recognise their own name and many children are now copying and writing their name from memory.  We have used lots of different media to encourage mark making and writing including sand, flour and foam as well as magnetic letters and whiteboards.

In Nursery we follow the weekly early phonics program ‘Letters and Sounds’.  We have completed Phase 1 , Aspects 1, 2 and 3 where we have focused on listening skills and  looked at Environmental sounds, Instrumental sounds and Body percussion.  Weekly videos are sent to parents with a phonics activity from the week to practise at home.  Nursery children have also adopted the new online reading scheme and are enjoying picture books in school and at home to assist with storytelling and comprehension skills.

Reception

The children have started their phonics journey this term and have completed Phase 2. The first phoneme we ever learnt began with the 's' sound. For all of the phonemes we learn a corresponding song, learn how to form the letter (grapheme) and attempt to spot the phoneme around the classroom.  

We have been using our phonics skills to blend lots of words to support our reading.  We can read now!  We can also segment and write down the sounds we can hear to make simple words. Some children have even attempted to write their own story.

Year 1

In year 1 we have been learning about the Great Fire of London in History and all of our English work has been linked to this topic. In 1666 Samuel Pepys wrote his diaries using a quill and by candle light so we decided to write our own diaries in the same way.

Reading Team

We have been reading lots of different books about the Great Fire of London and answering Meaning Medic and Wright Retrieval comprehension questions as a whole class. In the last couple of weeks of term some groups of children have been answering questions with a little support using the reading team to help them. 

Teaching Sequence

One of our two weeks teaching sequence was to write a recount in the form of a newspaper. We explored what r real newspapers looked like before identifying the different features. We then moved on to looking at newspaper names and headlines and how we could link this to the Great Fire of London. After than we looked at different captions and learnt that these were short snappy sentences that explained what the picture was about. We then had a go at writing some ourselves. This led to writing our fabulous newspaper reports thinking of a title, heading, drew a picture, write a caption for it and then described what happened in London in 1666. 

Phonics

In year 1 phonics plays a very important part in learning to read and write. We work in small groups to develop our skills at spotting digraphs and trigraphs with words. We do this by playing lots of different games to recognise sounds and read words. 

Year 2

Year 2 have been learning to read and research to support their writing. We wrote reports on wolves linked to our class text The Three Little Wolves and the big Bad Pig. Within the teaching sequence the children used non-fiction books independently to answer comprehension questions. 

We watched video footage and made notes using a spider diagram of wolves in the wild.

The children completed a final piece of writing using all of their new knowledge from research. 

Year 3

Year 3 would like to share a narrative text that uses ideas for characters and settings that we’ve read about in our class text.  We began by looking at examples of narrative texts, then identified features within them that differed from other types of writing.  We know that we have to think about the audience when writing and noticed that narrative text includes details about where and when a scene is happening, descriptive details about the characters and includes speech.  We made a checklist of features we need to help us plan the narrative that we wrote in November.

Year 3 would like to share with you an example of reading from our Guided Reading book.  Once we can decode using phonics, we practise fluency and then improve with using intonation.  When reading narrative texts, we challenge ourselves to use expression when reading aloud dialogue between the characters.

Year 4

This newspaper article was the end of a sequence of skills in year 4. We began by looking at the key features of newspapers using an example text. We then practised writing down the 5 w’s using photos for inspiration and writing opening paragraphs. Next, we looked at the organisation of newspaper paragraphs including the shift in tense from past to present in the final paragraph. We then used these skills to create a newspaper article recounting the firework competition at the finale of our class text ‘The Firework Maker’s Daughter’.

Year 5

In Year 5 we have been focusing upon ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ as our class text. We produced a formal letter of complaint whilst writing in role as Professor Kirke. The children took up this position to express their dissatisfaction with the quality of, and unexpected events surrounding the purchase of, an antique wardrobe.

This piece of writing was produced following a sequence of lessons to focus upon these skills. We, looked at formal letters, addressing them and developing formal language. We also looked at elements of persuasion such as rhetorical questions, the power of 3, repetition and flattery. Over the weeks, we reviewed each key element, working on introductory paragraphs, making key points and being able to offer a conclusion. We even worked on our letters of complaint by composing a letter to a hair salon after a rather disappointing experience there.

In reading, we have worked on our understanding of events and themes within texts in both guided reading groups and as a class. We have further discussed and developed our understanding of questions types and are beginning to offer a range of supporting evidence to support our answers. As a progression in Year 5

Year 6

Y6 have been very busy working on narratives, diary entries, newspaper reports, writing letters and non-chronological reports. For our poetry unit, we performed ‘The Song of the Witches’ from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Don’t we look spectacularly spooky?

Another fabulous term of work and experiences for the children of Pittington Primary. Let’s see what next term brings…

Spring Term 2020

Time flies when you’re having fun – and that’s what we’ve been doing in English again this term. Another very successful World Book Day with amazing costumes.

A fabulous assembly with our fun-loving staff dressing as the ‘Pittington Primary Reading Team’ where we shared a story and used our characters to ask an array of questions to support work going on daily in classes. Lots of laughs and very impressive answers from our children.

 Unfortunately, our book fair provider needed to cancel this year and at very short notice we organised a book swap. With some help from a fabulous volunteer reader and mum from our school we invited everyone to bring in a good quality used book and swap it for something different. The feedback from children was brilliant and all of the extra donations of books we received are currently being catalogued for our school library. It was great to appreciate what we have, to share with others and think about ways to re-use good quality resources - best of all at no cost to anyone! Huge thanks to our parents for getting on board and supporting us yet again.

Let’s see what’s been going on in the classroom. The teachers give you an insight into the spring term in our school…

Nursery

In Nursery we have introduced a ‘book of the week’ to enable us to encourage independent use of the reading area and look at one book in more detail.  We have been focusing on traditional tales such as ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’, ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and ‘The Three Little Pigs’.  The children have enjoyed talking about the characters and have begun to look at the beginning, middle and end of each story.  We have talked about familiar language at the beginning of traditional tales such as ‘Once upon a time’ and everyone has loved getting involved with the repeated words and phrases.  Our favourite was definitely ‘run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man’.  The children have been using story sacks and props to predict the story and to retell it with their friends.  Mrs Aitchison even taught us some actions to the story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and all of the children performed the actions to the story while Mrs Roberts read the words, it was so much fun and really helped us to remember what had happened.  Some children have been enjoying trying to represent their story telling on paper and have been making story maps with pictures.  In addition to this we have been continuing our mark making skills, looking at patterns and copying the letters from our name.  We have talked a lot about different pencil grips and the best way to hold our pencils.  We have been practising over writing and copying our names and many of us can now write our own names from memory.  We have been careful to start and end each of our letters in the correct place.  Everyone is continuing with their early phonics work and we have been practising our listening skills with listening walks and listening lotto games.  We have looked in detail at rhyming words and read lots of rhyming books.  Many of us can now identify a rhyming pair of words and continue a rhyming string of words.  Our favourite game to play has been ‘rhyming soup’.  We sing a special song and put all of the rhyming objects into the mixing bowl to make rhyming soup.  Finally World Book Day was certainly a highlight, we loved dressing up and especially enjoyed taking part in the book swap and choosing a new book to take home.

Reception

We have continued our journey with reading and writing tricky words. 

We are using our superpower of reading to stop Mr Trickster playing tricks on us.  We have created a new class display (as well as a new class enemy!) Mr Trickster visits the classroom each night and leaves a ‘Trick’ (a secret password which will be a tricky word). The following day he challenges us to read the secret password and write it wherever we can. If we can all remember the password by the end of the day then we win and he is defeated! We enjoy exploring the tricky word of the day and write it in as many places as we can. 

The children are doing so well with phonics that we are now using trigraphs! The children are playing reading games to support their blending skills!

The children are becoming more confident with story writing and are enjoying using story maps to plot out their ideas.  Once they are happy with their sequences of events they use the story maps to put their ideas into sentences creating their very own stories. 

We have been looking at how writing can support our ideas in all areas.  We have been adding labels/ notes to pictures, adding labels to models and even writing lists!

We had a great time for world book day and celebrated our love for stories. We dressed up in wonderful costumes, talked about our favourite stories, swapped our books in the school book swap shop, joined in with whole school assembly and enjoyed sharing some new stories together.

Year 1

Throughout the Spring term we have been working really hard to make sure our sentences make sense and include capital letters, full stops and finger spaces. As a class we have done a great job of supporting each other and working together in all writing tasks. The children have really improved their phonic knowledge and are applying it in their spelling within independent writing.

We have been doing lots of activities to help us learn and remember our sounds and have enjoyed exploring real and pseudo words when segmenting and blending in reading. I’m really proud of the way the children have engaged in our reading challenges.

Year 1 were lucky to have the opportunity to work with students from Durham Sixth Form performing arts department this term. They led a fantastic workshop for us focusing on a child’s imagination and how we can explore our ideas. The children joined in enthusiastically and we all had a ball!

Year 2

Year 2 have been exploring a variety of different texts this term. They have written a postcard from Flat Stanley to his brother, a newspaper article recording Arthur’s daring trap of the ‘sneak thieves’, a recount of their visit to Maiden Castle for a Multi Sports festival and a Diary entry imagining what they could do if they were flat. We also really enjoyed world book day and the outfits were brilliant. On the day, the class got into pairs and planned a ‘crossover’ story where the two characters met, imagining the adventures they might get up to!

Year 3

In year 3 we have been reading a text called The Wild Robot.  We used the short chapters to help understanding grammar and punctuation, which we then used in our writing.  We wrote to inform with a Traveller's Guide for visitors to Durham, to entertain with a story, a newspaper article and had begun writing a play script.

We continued to improve our handwriting, realising that our audience needs to be able to read what we've written.  Spellings have improved since we've made more use of the table top resources for phonics and high frequency words.

Guided reading has help us to read with more clarity, intonation and at a volume needed by the audience, so we know to read louder to the whole class and quieter when in our reading circles.

Year 4

In Year 4, our key focus text for the Spring Term was ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ by Cressida Cowell. We have studied the book as our class text and have used it as a focal point for comprehension and creative writing opportunities.

With regard to reading, we have regularly shared the text as a class and used it as a discussion point to focus on character and plot development, and to make deductions and predictions based upon evidence. We have had great fun following the adventures and the text has really allowed the children to demonstrate their growing understanding and fluency when reading aloud.

The text has been a focus for a number of writing opportunities such as including dialogue between characters in an exploration of the caves – searching for dragons.

A further writing opportunity was within non- chronological reports and this included a study into the key features found in these texts. The children further developed their learning by creating their own species of dragon and composing a report page all about them. We had some very imaginative, scary and dangerous dragons to contend with.

We have also explored formal letters of application and complaint. This included the children writing to apply for the position of being a head dragon trainer and also composing a letter of complaint to the leader of the tribe about the impact of the initiation events. This did produce some very imaginative writing and the children demonstrated their ability to develop and focus on key points of discussion.

As a class, we have thoroughly enjoyed this text focus, and have laughed, gasped and sat on the very edge of our seats as the adventure has developed.  We also had a lot of fun with reading on World Book Day.

Year 5

We have been reading a book called ‘Journey to the River Sea’ by Eva Ibbotson. The text is about an orphan girl sent to live in the Amazon with distant relatives. It has been chosen to complement our geography work on South America and inspire our art work for the term. The children have worked on character profiles, Amazon adventure stories, travel programmes persuading people to visit famous landmarks and natural areas of beauty such as the Iguacu Falls and Sugar Loaf Mountain. We have been watching Question Time and learning how to debate and discuss the important issues around deforestation. We thought about our own viewpoints and debated and then started to research and read about how other people felt e.g. pharmacists, loggers, cattle farmers. We then tried debating in role play with more facts and information to support the roles we played. A fabulous process and war of words in the classroom. The children really rose to the challenge!

To support our adventure story writing and help us to fully understand how to set a scene we ventured out for some exploring of Pittington Hill. We climbed, scrambled, got muddy, listened to nature and came back with our heads full of inspiration for writing.

Year 6

Y6 have been enhancing their letter writing skills.  We looked at letters of complaint and letters to persuade.  We were thrilled when local artist, Jenny Ulyatt responded to our letter to invite her into school to impart some of her water colour skills upon us.   Here is our letter:

Pittington Primary School

Hallgarth Lane

Pittington

Durham

DH6 1AF

Thursday 16^th January

Ms Jenny Ulyatt

Rose Cottage

14 Crossgate Peth

Durham

DH1 4PZ

Dear Ms Ulyatt,

We are Y6 pupils at Pittington Primary School and we would like to invite you to come in to our class to teach us how to use watercolour.

Your mum came to look around our school and coincidently, our teacher recognised your name. After viewing some of your tremendous work online, we feel inspired and would like you to share some of your talented techniques with us. We will be studying Vikings and thought that you could help us paint a stunning landscape of Lindisfarne.

Upon receiving this letter, we hope you accept our invitation. If it is convenient, we are hoping that you would be available late February or early March.

 We are Y6 pupils at Pittington Primary School and we would like to invite you to come in to our class to teach us how to use watercolour.

Your mum came to look around our school and coincidently, our teacher recognised your name. After viewing some of your tremendous work online, we feel inspired and would like you to share some of your talented techniques with us. We will be studying Vikings and thought that you could help us paint a stunning landscape of Lindisfarne.

Upon receiving this letter, we hope you accept our invitation. If it is convenient, we are hoping that you would be available late February or early March.

Yours sincerely,

Year 6

In the Spring Term, Y6 have enjoyed reading The Jungle Book and comparing the original text to what we know from the cartoons and films. We explored how themes such as revenge and loyalty are developed throughout the book and how different characters are portrayed.

Y6 also extended their use of dialogue to create an imaginary encounter between different characters.

So much learning and so much fun again this term with a strange ending due to early school closure. As a staff we are very proud of the work the children are producing at home and sharing with us via email and on our Facebook page. Thank you so much to parents for supporting us in helping your children continue their love of all things literacy.           

Autumn Term 2019

Another exciting term in school as we all work hard to improve reading and writing. From our nursery new starters to the familiar faces of our year 6 class, everyone has been busy making progress and having fun.

Early Years

Nursery have started the year learning some traditional nursery rhymes, though our favourite poem by a long way, is Roald Dahl’s Crocky Wock the Crocodile. The crocodile has been chasing us around the garden threatening to spread mustard and caramel on us!! For our early steps into phonics children have been listening to sounds, identifying them, copying them and discussing how they sound.

Children are now recognising their names more and more on their pegs and to label their work and many are starting to try to write their names on their work too. Children have been watching the adults scribe their stories though staff are concerned this may need to stop…..the last story involved the children taking over Nursery and locking the staff in the climbing frame!

Reception have started to experiment with mark making in different ways and are learning the best way to hold writing tools. They have now begun their phonics journey and already know what phonemes, graphemes and digraphs are. They are currently working on forming letters correctly, recognising letters within books and are now even beginning to read simple words. Our reading and writing journey has truly begun!

Key stage 1

Our year 1 children have made a fabulous start following the National Curriculum and are working exceptionally hard to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops appropriately. Progression in reading is fantastic due to Year 1’s super engagement in daily phonics and reading both at home and in class. 

Great Fire
We have been learning all about the Great Fire of London. We have read books and watched videos that have given us lots of important facts about this event. The children worked together to discuss and come up with fantastic adjectives that describe the Great Fire and have taken turns on a hot seat answering questions as if they lived it. Lots of interesting questions were asked and there were some lovely detailed answers throughout. The children have also written their own diary entry from the perspectives of Samuel Pepys and King Charles II about what happened while the fire was raging.

George’s dragon at the fire station
We have loved reading and exploring the story George’s Dragon at the Fire Station. The children were very engaged throughout this and really enjoyed any work to do with George and Sparky. They knew this book so well that they were able to sequence it, re-tell parts of the story, act out some parts in small groups and write their very own endings.

Year 2 have been honing their persuasion skills this term. The class wrote letters to Persuade Mr Bainbridge that we should have more PE in school and then collaborated to compel him further by making video presentations on the same subject. A great way to develop our teamwork and speaking skills!

We have also been learning about poetry and recently worked in groups reciting a poem ‘The King of All the Dinosaurs’ back to the class. Each group chose how to share the lines of poetry, how to deliver them and even added some actions.

After identifying tricky high frequency words and common exception words for every individual in class, we took on the challenge of forming the spelling in play dough! This helped us to make a mental photo of the word to help us spell it in future.

Key stage 2

Literacy planning throughout school follows the teaching sequence from reading to writing, ensuring a balance of reading and writing within each unit. Our curriculum is based on high quality literature, poetry and non- fiction texts, which provide inspiration for a final written outcome. We want our children to love literature and be keen, confident writers. We want each individual child to have high aspirations and strive to reach their potential – whilst having as much fun as possible with friends and staff in school.

Texts being enjoyed across Key Stage 2 include The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, Macbeth, Beast Quest, The Firework Maker’s Daughter and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Year 3 have been reading a book from the Beast Quest series and using the text to help with structuring their writing.  We have practised forming lower case letters with flicks when needed and spelling high frequency sight words correctly.  This term we have improved our speaking and listening skills by talking about what interests us and reviewing what we read.  This term we have written news reports, letters and narrative texts linked to our class reader.

Year 4 have very much enjoyed our class text focus which has been ‘The Firework Maker’s Daughter’ by Philip Pullman. We have engaged in Lila’s journey and have been on the edges of our seats during the moments of tension. The silence and sudden rush of questions after one particular chapter was fantastic to see. From the text we have based our writing tasks such as a description of the Fire-Fiend’s lair and a newspaper report about the great firework’s finale. Some of the writing produced has been very impressive.

During this focus we have also applied the reading team questions to respond and enquire further about the characters and key events. Recently, we have also worked on poetry and really tested ourselves to recite some poems by heart.

Year 5 have completed lots of cross-curricular work linked to the class text The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe as you will see in other curriculum areas for the term. We are really beginning to put our literacy skills into practise now, writing in all subject areas and for different purposes.

Halloween is a fabulous time of year to inspire us to write. Year 5 had a full day of fun playing team games, writing spooky stories and enjoying afternoon tea at Hallgarth Manor Hotel.

We decided that instead of buying presents for each other and Mrs Emmerson, this year we would all donate to a local food bank. We wrote letters to go with each bag of food we put together to reach out to the people in our community needing help. Giving us great satisfaction and a real purpose to write.

Y6 have adored studying two contrasting texts – Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling.  We have written a non-chronological text about House Elves and composed wonderful narratives about a journey down Diagon Alley  As well as participating in drama, we have written newspaper reports about a body being found for Macbeth We have even rewritten Macbeth to change the events following the three witches’ prophecy!

All of the staff are very proud of the children and their efforts this term. We have already started planning our new adventures for 2020…keep watching this space for our next update!

Summer Term 2019

Speaking, listening, reading and writing skills are vital in all areas of the curriculum. Take a look at some of the exciting things we’ve been up to and see how we develop and apply those skills through all of the subjects in school. We tailor our curriculum to meet the needs of our children and use their strengths and interests to drive learning and spark enthusiasm.

In the early years the children have been using the outdoors as a stimulus for writing.  The children re-designed the outdoor area after talking about recycling and reusing.

The children collaborate and share ideas. They are encouraged to listen to each other's ideas and respect the thoughts of their peers. 

Finger strength and fine motor skills are key to becoming writers. Our nursery children happily choose to demonstrate their skills both in and out of the classroom.

Our reception children are ready for anything year 1 has to throw at them! Confident, happy readers, writers and communicators leave our early years well equipped to tackle an exciting new curriculum. 

In Key stage 1 the children have been working on writing recounts and what better way than to tell everyone about their trip to the beach and aquarium this term. First-hand experience, emotions and memories give the children a wonderful starting point for their writing. 

Our children have been working hard with phonics since they started with us in nursery. They have been enjoying the sunshine and taking part in ‘phonics boot camp’ and lots of activities in the classroom to give them the best grounding for reading and writing that we can provide. 

The fun and first-hand experience does not stop at key stage 1. Throughout key stage 2 the children are given countless opportunities to develop and showcase their literacy skills through all subject areas. 

The children in year 5 have been looking at Anglo Saxon village life in history. They created model houses in DT and then used ICT skills to read and search ‘rightmove’ properties to look at the language of advertising. They then set about writing scripts for their own T.V. shows and created adverts for their own estate agencies. So much fun with so much learning packed in.

Year 6 have been exploring the Hobbit as a class text and used poetry to explore the mountain and the long journey faced by the adventurers. They also used the text to explore the thoughts and feelings of Thorin and were challenged to re-write the opening from his point of view. The children combined this with their work on collage and Picasso in art.

Another busy term bringing to an end another busy year in our fabulous school. Time for a rest and for our staff to start planning for new classes next academic year.

Spring Term 2019

Spring Term Update - What's been going on?

World Book Day

We celebrated World Book Day in style as only our children and staff can again this year. The costumes were outstanding and celebrated everyone’s favourite stories, characters and authors. We held a special assembly and each class took part in fun reading and drama activities linked the children’s own books and our class readers in school. A fabulous day to recognise how important reading is and how much pleasure it can bring.

In the Classroom...

Nursery have been sharing and enjoying books by the author Julia Donaldson. They have started work on rhyming and are regularly taking books home from our library to share at home. Phase 1 phonics has started with the children going on sound walks around school beginning their very important journey of hearing and deciphering environmental sounds.

Reception are working hard during daily handwriting activities to improve finger strength for letter formation and writing. They are using story mapping skills to begin structuring their work and guided reading sessions are now taking place weekly in class.

Our Year 1 children are being inspired to write through the ‘Supertato’ series of books. They have written their own stories using the characters they have met and written ‘How to’ guided for growing peas. The children continue to refine and improve finger strength through fine motor activities and there is a big focus on letter formation in handwriting. The majority of the class are working to be secure in phase 5 phonics in preparation for the up-coming phonics screening check – but more importantly preparing them to be confident, independent readers and writers.

Year 2 have found the immersive world of Enid Blyton’s ‘The Enchanted Wood’ maintains its charm for children and adults alike. Parents have been enthused to see them revisiting an often cited favourite childhood book. The children have been inspired by this book to write letters to persuade a company not to cut down forests, their very own fairy tales and a newspaper article about the shock discovery of a tree that acts as a portal to different worlds! The class recently sat their first practise SATS test and this has helped them begin with familiarisation of the assessment process and has assisted Mr Wright in his planning, interventions and challenges.

In year 3, following on from reading a literary classic in the autumn term, the storytelling skills of Michael Morpurgo are being enjoyed with The Butterfly Lion class text. Links have been made to both history and geography topics through literacy this term. The children have been using speaking and listening skills in debate work and using drama and reading to support story writing.

Year 4 are desperately trying to train their dragons in literacy and have written instructions and their own stories using themes from the book. They have drawn and painted dragons and produced a beautiful display in their classroom.

Year 5 are busy reading Journey to the River Sea, writing their own tales of being lost in the Amazon and campaign speeches ready for class debates about deforestation. We have been learning about our rights and have held a peaceful protest sharing our thoughts on how to care for the environment and our future. Our reader links perfectly to our geography work on South America and we have used it to inspire our carnival dance in P.E. To finish off the term we are having an Amazon art day where team work and communication is key to recreate a section of the River in our classroom.

Year 6 are preparing for end of year assessments and are working exceptionally hard to showcase their talents in reading and writing. Their class text is The Jungle book which has inspired them to write reports, travel articles and narrative encounters. They have been debating and presenting arguments for and against Mowgli returning to civilisation, showing how well they can think and form opinions for themselves – secondary schools watch out!

Reading Team Launch

As promised last term – The Pittington Primary School Reading Team...

The staff embraced their characters and talked to the children about their role in reading and how to identify different types of questions in a fun assembly this term. All children are now becoming familiar with the characters in class and using them to help improve responses to questions in all subject areas. A huge thank you to our staff who do everything they can to make learning meaningful and fun – I wonder who decided Mrs Lee should be Word Witch…

Autumn Term 2018

Literacy is at the heart of our curriculum at Pittington Primary School and we teach all aspects of the English curriculum in almost everything we do. We teach the children the importance of being able to communicate with one another through, writing, roleplay, speaking, listening and reading. The children learn in a literacy-rich environment and have lots and lots of fun in the process – which is exactly what learning should be!

Reading

At the moment we are busy launching our new ‘reading team’ – a set of characters we use to help the children to understand different types of questions and what is required in answering them. Each member of staff has become a character of the team and will be in role for special assemblies and for whole school events like World Book Day.

Meet the Team…

Writing

Writing is a life skill and we promote it in every single subject we teach. The children are taught the skills they need to write for different purposes. They learn the grammar, punctuation and spelling rules they need to be fluent and accurate writers. As a staff we work hard to give the children first-hand experiences and create a positive climate for writing. We encourage our children to be creative, imaginative and to take risks with their work. The writing they produce speaks for itself.

Spooky story writing with carved pumpkins to add to the atmosphere.

Budding news reporters using role play to support writing.

Extra-Curricular Activity

At the moment in school we have a drama group working hard in their own time outside of lessons to produce a Christmas performance of The Grinch. Spaces were filled immediately in the group and as interest is so high throughout the school, we will be looking at giving opportunities to even more children in the new year.

The Cast…

Watch this space to see pictures of the children in costume - currently being created by some of our talented staff in school….