At Queen’s Hill we want our children to love expressing themselves through writing and feel proud of their writing achievements. Children will be motivated to write through the use of engaging texts, experiences and a range of other exciting stimuli. We strive to equip children to develop a rich vocabulary which can help them bring their writing to life. Our writing is purposeful and covers a variety of genres and key skills, which builds upon prior knowledge. Teachers model the writing process and demonstrate the ambitious high standards expected of all children.
At Queen’s Hill we want our children to be confident readers and have a lifelong passion for reading. Reading is at the heart of everything we do at Queen’s Hill. Children are exposed to high quality texts across the curriculum and reading skills are taught explicitly in all year groups. Reading is a key part of our daily routine and it is celebrated through our ‘Read for a Star’ challenge.
In EYFS and Key Stage One, key reading and phonic skills are taught through Read Write Inc phonics programme. In Key Stage Two, we use ‘Reading Masters’ to support our children with their development of key comprehension skills. Reading for pleasure is a cornerstone of our approach, we are very fortunate to have two school libraries which children can access.
Subject in Action
Year 3 English
We are using Anthony Browne’s Hansel and Gretel in English over the next few weeks. Today we finished reading the story and created text maps to help us recall some of the key parts. We are going to be working on writing our own fairytale based on this story.
Year 5 – Author Visit
On Wednesday, some children in Year 5 enjoyed a visit to the bookshop ‘Bookbugs and Dragon Tales’ for an author visit. We learnt about the process of making a book from the first draft through to the final published copy. We explored a book called, ‘The Five Peppers’ which was written over 100 years ago … Read more
Dictionaries for every pupil!
Today EVERY child in Year 3 went home with an illustrated dictionary, kindly donated by the Rotary Club. As you can see from their faces the children were very happy and can’t wait to use them at home. A big thank you to the Rotary Club for organising this!
Year 6 Romeo and Juliet drama workshop!
Year 6 were fully immersed in the world of Shakespeare during their drama workshop with our expert visitor! Children took part in a series of warm-up activities – including becoming Madame Tussauds waxwork models and terrifying monsters! They then developed Romeo and Juliet freeze frames in groups and asked each other insightful questions surrounding these … Read more
Year 1 Strange Arrival
A mystery suitcase turned up in the Year 1 classrooms at the start of this half term. We tried to work out who it might belong to. It turned out it belonged to Christopher Columbus. He visited our classrooms the next day. We thought about what a question is and then asked him some of … Read more
Y5 English Poems
This half term we have been learning about Climate Change and have been inspired by the monsters from the book ‘Planet SOS’. We created our own climate change poems about the despicable Trash-Kong. Children included poetic features such as: hyperbole, alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification and onomatopoeia. They built their very own ‘Poetic Toolkits’ to support … Read more
Y5 Curriculum Day
Y5 had a great day celebrating Black History Month. We learnt about the Windrush Generation and what it was like for people at this time, who travelled over to the UK. We read our class reader ‘Windrush Child’ by Benjamin Zephaniah, which the children have been enjoying already this half term. We researched and learnt … Read more
Avid Year 6 Readers!
Year 6 have been reading enthusiastically using our new digital library ‘myON’. It has been fantastic to see the children engaging with the platform so brilliantly. The children have been reading a wide range of texts including some informative digital books about World War Two. There really is something for everyone to enjoy, keep it … Read more
English in Year 6
Year 6 have had a brilliant start to their reading and writing unit on Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian. It tells the story of a young boy, William Beech, who is evacuated to the countryside to the care of an elderly recluse, Mister Tom, in the wake of WW2. In Reading Masters, children have … Read more