English at Grove 

Spring 2024

Nursery 

The children in Nursery are continuing to mark make and are linking this to their curriculum subjects. They are able to confidently talk about what marks they have made and have given each mark a specific purpose. The children have started to practise writing their names. They use their name cards each morning to help them identify the letters in their name.

Reception

Reception have been building up their sentence skills by beginning to use finger spaces, full stops and capital letters. The children have written all about Winter, Penguins and their homes. Some children have also been sequencing pictures from a story and writing sentences about their core text. Take a look at the fantastic star writing in EYFS this term.

Year 1

During this half term, the children in Year 1 have been writing a list poem in the style of Abby Jenkins. The children have used adjectives to describe their animal, making sure they are showing not telling. They have also had a special occasion in Year 1 as it was Chip’s 2nd birthday – Chip is their class hamster. As part of the day the children organised him a party. The children then used this real-life stimulus to write a diary entry. They have worked so hard to use capital letters and full stops. Many children were able to extend their sentences with ‘and’ and ‘because’.

Year 2

This half term in year 2, the children have been writing poems to paint a picture. They have been focussing on acrostic poems linked to their Science topic; plants. They have incorporated similes and scientific vocabulary to create a better picture in the readers mind. Take a look at some of the fantastic poems written about a variety of plants.

 

Year 3

This half term the children have been learning about Kenning poems. They have identified the features of a Kenning and practised using hyphens to write two-word phrases. The children started off writing Kenning poems about themselves then they used non-fiction books to choose an animal of their choice to write about. The children were excited to read their poems to their friends to see if they could identify which animal they were.

Year 4

This term the children have had a fantastic opportunity to work with an external drama teacher to develop the themes portrayed in their class novel; The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Rauf. The children were in role as people from Welcome House persuading the council to not close down their camps and explained reasons for keeping it open. The children were using the perfect present tense accurately to write their speech. The children were then given the opportunity to perform their speeches. Scan the QR code to listen to Year 4’s speeches!

Year 5

The children in Year 5 have focussed on writing a letter to persuade. Their letter was based on their RHE project ‘The Three Clicks’. The children were writing a letter to Isla’s brother to persuade him to make the right decision and explained the positive consequences of this. They have thought very carefully about the purpose of their letter, ensuring they are using a variety of short and long sentences to add effect, the correct Year 5 punctuation and asking questions to the reader.

Year 6

This term Year 6 have focussed on two different types of genre; a narrative and a radio broadcast. Both pieces of writing were linked to their class novel ‘Freedom’ by Catherine Johnson. The children planned, drafted and wrote a fantastic dual narrative from Nat’s perspective and The Old Mistress’ perspective. The children used fantastic, coherent ideas which were drawn together with a range of year 6 punctuation, varied sentences and rhetorical questions. Their radio broadcast followed on from this where they persuading people to come over to Britain after the Windrush to help rebuild the country.

 

Autumn 2023

Reception

The children in Reception have been writing simple sentences and have been practising how to use the tripod grip to hold a pencil correctly. Many children are making meaningful marks in the continuous provision. It has been amazing to see so many writing stars!

Year 1

The children in Year 1 have been reading books by the author Catherine Rayner. They looked in depth at the story ‘Smelly Louie’ about a dog that lost his dog smell. The children retold the story in their own words, using a Pie Corbett story map to support them. They have tried so hard to use capital letters and full stops in the correct places and form their lower-case letters correctly.

 

Year 2 

This half term Year 2 have focussed on the story Gorilla by Anthony Browne. The children have planned, drafted and published their own endings of the story. The children had to think carefully about where Gorilla and Hannah could go on an adventure and what they would do there. We thought carefully about the purpose of our narratives, to entertain, and ensured we used adjectives and conjunctions to meet this purpose. The children finished the writing process by sharing their narratives with Year 1 children.

 

Year 3 

Year 3 have been writing a narrative linked to their class novel, The Butterfly Lion. At the beginning of the story Bertie loses his mother. The children have written poignant narratives from the perspective of the mother in heaven of the aftermath of her death. They have carefully considered the fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases they have included to maintain the tone.

Year 4 

During the Autumn term, the children in Year 4 read ‘The Firework Makers Daughter’ By Phillip Pullman. They have written some fantastic non-chronological reports on fireworks; the different types of fireworks, history of fireworks and how they work. They used a variety of sources to collect their information and thought carefully about the layout of their writing to fit the purpose well.

Year 5 

This half term, Year 5 have written a narrative linked to their class novel ‘Alex Rider Storm Breaker’ by Anthony Horowitz. In the first chapter of the story, a man called Ian Rider dies. The children wrote a narrative about how he died which was named ‘What happened to Ian Rider?’. The children have written some fantastic narratives using speech and figurative language.

Year 6 

This half term, Year 6 have focussed on two different forms of writing: a suspense narrative and a non-chronological report. The children have worked hard to develop their coherence skills by considering the audience and purpose of both pieces of writing. The children’s suspense narratives were linked to our class novel of the half term: Holes. The children have used figurative language, repetition, long and short sentences and dialogue to create suspense when Stanley found an item whilst digging a hole. We are so impressed with how hard they have worked.

Summer

Nursery

This half term the children have been learning all about people who can help us. As part of this topic the children have had the opportunity to mark make and write recognisable letters to the cook and to Mrs Baker to invite them into their classroom. The children are trying really hard to recognise and write the letters in their name and are able to confidently explain the marks they have made.

Reception

The children in reception are continuing to practise using their finger spaces, tricky words and their phonics knowledge to write simple sentences. The children have lots of activities and opportunities to write in the provision that is linked to a core text each week. Take a look at some of the fantastic sentences written about The Hungry Caterpillar and Elmer!

Year 1 

This half term Year 1 have been focussing on the books ‘Look Up’ and ‘Clean Up’ by Nathan Byron (their author of the half term). The children have created Pie Corbett story maps that they used to support them verbally summarising the story with a partner. They have started to ask questions punctuated correctly and wrote some fantastic Narratives about the story ‘Look Up’.

Year 2  

This half term the children in Year 2 have been focussing on the story ‘Tear Thief’ by Carol Ann Duffy. They have taken part in a variety of drama activities, such as role play, hot seating and freeze frames, to support their understanding of the text. The children have written their own version of the narrative, ensuring their story is coherent from the beginning to the end. They have tried so hard to use question marks and conjunctions to extend their sentences further.

Year 3  

Year 3’s class novel for the Summer Term is ‘The Abominables’ by Eva Ibbotson. The children have written some fantastic narratives where they had to write their own journey to England. They had to consider how they were going to travel to England, what problem will entail and how the problem will get resolved.  The children have used some fantastic frontal adverbials and rhetorical questions to move the story along.

Year 4

Year 4 have been learning about Kenning poems. The children have read a variety of Kennings, identified the features and wrote their own version linked to fireworks. They have used some fantastic vocabulary to create a visual image of the fireworks, thinking carefully about the nouns, verbs and adjectives used.

Year 5  

Year 5 have been looking at a variety of poems; Q + A’s, limericks and free verse. The children have identified the features of each poem, the purpose and audience and the structure needed to be effective. The children were given the freedom to choose which style of poem they were going to write about. Can you work out what the theme of the poems are?

Year 6  

This half term, Year 6 have been learning about all things London. One of their writing genres was an information leaflet to teach. The children had a fantastic opportunity to visit London and Harry Potter World as well as learning about the River Thames in Geography. The children used all their real-life experience and additional research to create some eye-catching, informative and exciting leaflets aimed specifically at children. The children thought carefully about how to capture the audience’s interests and considered the layout of their leaflet. Take a look at some of their amazing leaflets – you might learn something new!

 

Spring

Nursery:

Nursery have been using different media to make meaningful marks. Some children are exploring with writing recognisable letters, with one or two of them beginning to write very simple words.

Reception:

Reception have been building up their sentence skills by beginning to use finger spaces, full stops and capital letters. The children have written all about Winter, Penguins and their homes. Take a look at the fantastic star writings in EYFS this half term!

 

Year 1

During this half term, the children in Year 1 have been writing a narrative based on Halibut Jackson by David Lucas – their author of the term. The children have created their own Pie Corbett story maps to help the coherence in their writing and have been ensuring their sentences have a capital letter and a full stop. The children have also written an explanation text on Neil Armstrong where they gathered lots of useful information about him and ensured they used capital letters for names.

 

Year 2

The children in Year 2 have been focussing on two forms of writing; a letter to persuade and a narrative to entertain. As part of their persuasive letters, the children were writing to Mrs Baker to persuade her to have a cricket coach come to school to teach the children. To ensure this letter was successful they had to consider the audience and formality of the letter. The children planned and wrote many reasons why a cricket coach would be a good idea at Grove School – it worked! Their narrative was a recount of The Night Gardener by their author of the term.

Year 3:

Year 3 have been writing some fantastic narratives linked to their Class Novel of the term ‘The Wild Robot’ by Peter Brown. The children wrote from the Robot’s perspective when he arrived on the island, met lots of unkind animals and showed them how to make friends. The children were focussing carefully on their coherence skills by using different sentence openers, speech and conjunctions to develop their ideas further.

Year 4:

The children in Year 4 have been writing an information text to Teach. The information text was all about Computing and they thought very carefully about who their audience was when writing their information. The children gathered their own information and chose how to present this into different headings. They have been using their editing skills to improve and up level their drafts.

Year 5:

The children in Year 5 have focussed on two forms of writing; a narrative to entertain and a letter to persuade. The narrative was linked to their Class Novel ‘Journey to Jo’burg’ by Beverley Naidoo where they wrote a new scene from a different perspective. Their letter was based on their RHE project ‘The Three Clicks’. The children were writing a letter to Isla’s brother to persuade him to make the right decisions and explained the positive consequences of this.

Year 6:

This half term Year 6 have focussed on two different types of genre; a narrative and a persuasive, formal letter. Both pieces of writing were linked to their Class Novel ‘Freedom’ by Catherine Johnson. The children planned, drafted and wrote a fantastic narrative about Nat escaping from London and returning home, to freedom, in the style of Catherine Johnson. The children used fantastic, coherent ideas which were drawn together with a range of year 6 punctuation, varied sentences and rhetorical questions. Their persuasive, formal letter followed on from this where they wrote to the Prime Minister to persuade him to abolish The Slavery Act. They thought carefully about the structure of their letter, the formality and the powerful verbs used to meet the purpose of their letter.

 

Autumn 

Nursery 

Nursery have been mark making in many ways. Some children have begun to write their name. They have been using their name card to copy some of the letters in their name.

Reception

The children in Reception have been writing simple sentences and have been practising how to use the tripod grip to hold a pencil correctly. It has been amazing to see so many writing stars!

Year 1

Year 1 have been studying core texts written by our author of the half term Catherine Rayner, we have written in role as Smelly Louie and Isaac from two of her wonderful stories. Our non-fiction text Seasons Come, Seasons Go: Tree by Britta Teckentrup linked to our seasons topic in Science and studies about weather changes in Geography. After reading this, we wrote a non-chronological report about the seasons Autumn and Summer.

Year 2

This half term year 2 have been studying the author, Anthony Browne. In their lessons they have looked in depth into the character's feelings and emotions throughout the text. As part of their writing, they wrote a recount of a day 'In The life of Smudge', a character from the book 'Gorilla'.

 

Year 3

Year 3 have been writing a persuasive advert to stop people going to the circus. They have also written a narrative based on our class novel The Butterfly Lion. They looked at the audience and purpose of our writing and had to include a problem and solution within their writing. Here are some of their fantastic brainstorming ideas.

Year 4 

This half term, Year 4 have been reading the first book in the Spiderwick Chronicles series.  They have written a narrative to entertain based on the start of the book, using lots of excellent descriptive language.  They have also drawn on their learning in history to write a recount to record a day in the life of an Anglo-Saxon child where they were able to show off their brilliant show-not-tell skills.

Year 5

Year 5 looked at a narrative with 4-voices, each voice spoke about the same situation from their perspective. The children have written a 2-voice narrative linking to their class novel: Storm Breaker. The 2-voice narrative was detailing events that were happening alongside each other.

 

Year 6

This half term, Year 6 have focussed at two different forms of writing: a suspense narrative and a non-chronological report. The children have worked hard to develop their coherence skills by considering the audience and purpose of both pieces of writing. The children’s suspense narratives were linked to our class novel of the half term: Holes. The children have used figurative language, repetition, long and short sentences and dialogue to create suspense when Stanley found an item whilst digging a hole. We are so impressed with how hard they have worked.

 

Nursery

This half term the children have been reading books about starting nursery and different types of homes.  The children really enjoyed reading Spot Loves Nursery by Eric Hill.  The children have been exploring their nursery classrooms and trying some of the fun activities that Spot did in the book.

  

       

The children also enjoyed reading This is Our House by Michael Rosen and Bob Graham.  They talked confidently about their own houses and used a range of materials indoors and outdoors to build the houses they saw in the story.

       

Listen to Hamza tell you which type of house he built in Nursery:

 

Reception

The children in Reception have been listening to stories all about different houses and the changing seasons.  The children loved reading the book Seasons Come, Seasons Go, Tree.  They enjoyed looking at the pictures and talking about how the animals and trees changed in the different seasons.  The children were excited to help our gardener Mrs Sally plant bulbs in the playground and can't wait for the flowers to grow.

       

Listen to Chieno tell you why his favourite season is Spring:

 

Year 1

The authors of the half term for Year 1 have been Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb. Their core texts have included The Everywhere Bear, The Paper Dolls and Lost in the Toy Museum. 

Year 1 sequenced the events from The Everywhere Bear by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb. The class bears then went on their own adventures! The children wrote a narrative for this and wrote about which places they would take our bear too.

              

Listen to Avaani's favourite part of the story:

After reading The Paper Dolls, Year 1 made their own paper dolls and wrote a recount of this. They also drew their own story maps of the story to help them retell what happened.

       

Year 1 had so much fun reading Lost in the Toy Museum by David Lucas. The children played hide and seek, just like the toys did in the story to explain to Bunting if he was hot or cold! We used our game to write our own story Lost in the School by Year 1.

 

Year 2

This half term Year 2 studied Valrie Thomas and Korky Paul as their author of the half term. Some of the core texts have included Winnie and Wilbur, Winnie and Wilbur Under the Sea and Winnie and Wilbur at the Seaside.

Year 2 sequenced the events from Winnie and Wilbur Under the Sea. Then the children used exciting adjectives to write descriptions about some sea creatures.

       

After reading Winnie and Wilbur The Amazing Pumpkin, Year 2 created their own story board to help write a narrative to retell the story. The children used adjectives to describe the setting of the story in their writing.

       

Listen to Felix's favourite part of the story:

Year 3

The class novel for Year 3 this half term was Stig of the Dump by Clive King.  The children enjoyed exploring the relationships between characters who have come from opposite worlds and how their friendship develops.  There were lots of twists and turns along the journey for Stig and Barney.

Listen to Humayra explain what the theme of Stig of the Dump is and how Stig was a good friend to Barney:

Hakeem really enjoyed reading Stig of the Dump.  Listen to the part of the story which he found most surprising:

 

Year 4

The children in Year 4 have been engrossed with their class novel this half term, The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Rauf.

The children made links between the book and themes they were learning about in their RHE lessons and the Grove School expectations including treating others with respect, showing tolerance and being a good friend.  The shape narrative in each classroom shows how Ahmet's experiences in England moved quickly from being positive to negative.  Can you guess the shape the teachers chose to represent Ahmet's journey?

Listen to Haniya explain the theme of The Boy at the Back of the Class, how different characters behaved towards Ahmet and why they behaved like this:

Listen to Umaymah explain how The Boy at the Back of the Class made her feel and why:

 

Year 5

The children in Year 5 have been fascinated to read about what life was like for Victorian children in their class novel, Street Child by Berlie Doherty.

The story explores how Jim was treated and what life was like for him after his mother passed away.  The children explored their impressions of different characters and how the events in the story made them feel.

       

Listen to Riya, Shanaya and Sehajdeep explain the theme of Street Child, why they enjoyed reading the story and how the story made them feel and why:

  

 

Year 6

In Year 6, the children have been reading The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier.

The Silver Sword is a World War 2 survival story which is a duel narrative.  The children in Year 6 followed Joseph and his family who share their story and their separate journeys to safety during World War 2.  They explored the relationships between characters and were pleasantly surprised to find out that there were still people in the world who showed kindness to others despite being in the middle of terrible events.

       

Listen to Othman explain why he enjoyed reading The Silver Sword and how the author created suspense within the story:

Listen to Safiyyah explain why she thinks EVERYONE should read The Silver Sword: