Reading into Writing: Blog items
Date: 17th Oct 2025 @ 12:11pm
This half term in Reading into Writing, Year 5 have been exploring biographies! We’ve enjoyed learning about the features of this text type and discovering how writers tell the stories of inspiring people. For our Hot Write, everyone wrote a biography about Bob Marley, showing off everything we’d learned about structuring information, using formal language, and celebrating someone’s achievements.
Date: 16th Oct 2025 @ 9:07am
To celebrate Black History Month, pupils in year 4 have written non-chronological reports about Viv Anderson - the first black person to represent the England senior national football team. Pupils enjoyed finding aout about Viv's early life - his parents were part of the Windrush Generation, who moved to England after World War 2. Here are a few examples of the children's writing.
Date: 13th Oct 2025 @ 5:19pm
This week we have been reading the story 'I want to be a Princess' by Stephanie Taylor. We learnt about Maya, who initially says she wants to be a princess, but then explains she wants to be like Princess Amina, a warrior princess who defended and ruled a kingdom. We then spent some time discussing with our teachers and peers what we would like to be when we grow up and our reasons why. We talked about lots of different careers, including doctors, teachers, ice cream sellers, police officers and builders.
Reception- Sensory Experience: Making Bread like Little Red Hen
Date: 10th Oct 2025 @ 6:18pm
This week some of the children in Reception have been exploring making bread.
They used all their senses to explore the ingredients and had fun feeling the flour, mixing in the water and mark making - we got very messy!
We were also learning to work alongside each other and focus our attention and concentrate during an activity.
Date: 7th Oct 2025 @ 6:34pm
Over this half term, we have been completing lots of tasks in our provision to practise our reading, writing, maths and oracy skills. We have retold stories, represented numbers, ordered numbers, practised number and letter formation and worked on fine motor skills, We have been working on completing these short tasks with increasing independence, to consolidate prior learning.
Date: 6th Oct 2025 @ 12:46pm
Today we held our first Spelling Bee of the year. Each house was represented by the best spellers from Year 2 - Year 6 and the children were tested on spellings they have been learning in Autumn 1. We are very proud of all the children for being their house representative and spelling some very tricky words in front of the whole school. The overall winners were Chepstow, who managed to spell 12/15 spellings across all 5 years groups.
Year 4 - BHM Non-Chronological Reports
Date: 6th Oct 2025 @ 10:25am
Pupils in year 4 have been learning how to write a non-chronological report. As this journey nears its conclusion, pupils have spent time editing and improving the draft of their final piece of writing. As October is Black History Month, we decided to write our reports about Viv Anderson, who was the first black person to represent England in a senior international football match.
Date: 2nd Oct 2025 @ 9:14am
This week we have begun our new writing journey of news articles. We have looked at a WAGOLL (what a good one looks like) and pulled out the features of the genre. We then looked at a range of articles and text marked them with the features we discussed the day before. By the end of the unit we will have written an artcle about the excape of Harriet Tubman, which will link with our work on Black History Month.
Date: 29th Sep 2025 @ 5:56pm
Today we read our new story, 'Handas Surprise.' We discussed the characters, the setting and the key events, before sequencing the story ourselves. We also accessed different related tasks in our provision, including retelling the story in our storytelling area, ordering numbers 1-10 and creating a fruit basket for Handa.
Date: 26th Sep 2025 @ 11:13am
The children in Reception have been busy learning our letter sounds. They have been taking part in their daily phonics lessons focusing of regonising graphemes, oral segmenting and blending CVC words hearning the initial sound. We have been practising forming our letters correctly and labeling pictures with the intial sound. Have a look at our learning!
Year 4 - Non Chronological Report - Shared Write
Date: 25th Sep 2025 @ 10:14am
Today, we completed a shared write about Black History Month, which is next month. We had to use our knowledge of the features of non-chronological reports to set out the information we were given correctly.
Year 1- School Council Elections
Date: 24th Sep 2025 @ 7:45am
This week, the whole School have been preparing manifesto's as to why they should represent the class as a member of the school council. As part of our Reading into Writing, we carefully thought about why we would be a good councillor and presented them to the class to encourage them to vote for us. On Thursday, we went into the hall and confidentially placed our votes for who we believed would be the best person to represent us.
Well done to our newly elected councillors!
Beech- Kevin
Hazel- Myla-Gray
Reception Learning to Write our Name
Date: 19th Sep 2025 @ 11:36am
In Reception we are focusing on recgonsing and writing our own names. The children have busy practising holding their pencil correctly and forming the letters . They have been working with an adult aswell and independently in the classroom areas. This ia really important skill- please help support your child at home. Your child may bring home their own name card to practise with. Please encourage them to do this regularly!
Date: 18th Sep 2025 @ 9:27am
In our first Oracy lesson, we explored the physical side of speaking and communication. We looked at how facial expressions, posture, voice projection, tonal variation, and pace of speech can change how we speak and how others understand us. It was a fun and lively session! We pulled funny faces in the mirror, practised breathing and humming exercises, and even recited Humpty Dumpty using different tones and speeds. It helped us understand that speaking clearly isn’t just about words—it’s also about how we use our bodies and voices. We can’t wait for the next session!
Date: 15th Sep 2025 @ 2:40pm
This week our story is 'The Gruffalo.' Today we have read and discussed the story, the characters and the setting, before completing Gruffalo related tasks in our provision. We have been writing captions, ordering numbers 1-10, retelling the story at our story telling table and matching number to quantity.
Date: 8th Sep 2025 @ 6:22pm
Year 1 have read and explored the story 'The Colour Monster' as their first text this half term. We have practised our oracy skills to discuss the characters, their emotions and how we can relate to each feeling. We have also been retelling the story in our story telling area, labelling the monsters/sentences about the different characters and completing lots of colour monster themed activities in our provision.
Reception learning to write their names
Date: 8th Sep 2025 @ 1:22pm
Over the course of this half term we are going to be focusing on ensuring that the children can recognise and write their own name, whilst holding their pencils correctly. Today the children made a great start by using their name cards to copy their names out with Miss Sharples and Miss Crystal. Some children were even able to recognise some of the letters in their name. Lots of opportunities at home to practice recognising and writing their name will help the children immensely.
Date: 8th Jul 2025 @ 5:56pm
Alongside the rest of the school, Year 1 have spent lots of time over the past few weeks perfecting two poems for our Boundary choral speaking competition. Today, we perfomed 'Crabby' and 'Rumble in the Jungle' for the rest of our school. We impressed the judges with our beaming smiles, clear pronunciation and Makaton signs!
Year 3- Understanding features of a balanced argument
Date: 25th Jun 2025 @ 3:04pm
As part of out Reading into Writing journey, the children have been looking at rhetorical questions, understanding fact and opinion as well as emotive language. The children completed a range of activities in which they had to sort statements, create examples and identify examples in a range of texts. The children will then use these features in their final piece.
Year 2- Gets taken over by Year 5
Date: 20th Jun 2025 @ 3:06pm
Yesterday, year two were taken over by year five. Miss Hester-Hopwood and Mr Cooke were in our class teaching us all about homophones and number bonds. We did a matching activity to match the correct spelling to the picture before doing Maths recapping our number bonds to 20. We loved the Year 5 children teaching us!
Reception- The Three Little Pigs
Date: 13th Jun 2025 @ 2:29pm
This week Reception have been reading the story The Three Little Pigs. We retold the story, learnt new words and discussed why it is importatnt to work hard like the third little pig and not become lazy like the other two little pigs who quickly made their houses out of straw and sticks. Look at what else we did too!
Date: 10th Jun 2025 @ 12:19pm
This week we have been reading 'Snail and the Whale.' We began by talking about the key events in the story and created a story map to help us retell the key events. We have also completed lots of activities in our provision relating to the story, including retelling the story at the story telling table and labelling the key characters.
Date: 16th May 2025 @ 1:54pm
As part of their writing journey, year 5 pupils have been working collaboratively to write part of a historical narrative. Working together, pupils have changed part of the classical poem, The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes, into a narrative.
Date: 8th May 2025 @ 9:48am
This week saw Year 5 begin their new journey in Reading into Writing. As always, we begin with an oracy lesson. We are looking at the narrative poem 'The Highway Man' by Alfred Noyes. The children worked in groups, each taking a stanza to use their oracy skills including intonation, expression and performace to bring the stanza to life in a performance in front of the class.
