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English

The teaching of English at Phoenix Infant School is enjoyable, motivating and challenging. We teach basic skills and ensure we provide a rich, meaningful and engaging environment. Reading and Writing is encouraged throughout the whole of the curriculum as we strive to inspire a lifelong love of books and Literature. Below are the current policies for English and explain further how Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening and Phonics are taught throughout The School.

Policies

Reading Information letter to parents 4 12 20

READING AT HOME WITH YOUR CHILD letter.pdf

How to support with English at home - parent information with audio

English parent meeting powerpoint with audio 2020.pptx

Big Cat eBooks Library letter to parents

Collins Big Cat ebook Libraries.pdf

Long Term English Plan KS1

Curriculum Coverage KS1 English.doc

English Progression Overviews

World Book day letter

World book letter 2021.pdf

Class 6 have been looking at story writing. We created our own short story as a class with using sentence openers. We then worked with a partner to create our own short story with the openers. Take a look at us in action

In class 3 we have had Caryl Hart as our author and we have loved reading her books. We listened to stories like Knock Knock Superhero, Plunge into the Pirate Pool and How to Grow a Dinosaur. The children loved the stories and especially enjoyed the Albie adventures. We were so excited to receive a poster and a post card from Caryl Hart. Thanks so much Caryl!

This term Class 6 have been reading and looking at all different books by the brilliant author Roald Dahl. We have read George’s Marvellous Medicine and have enjoyed designing our own to give to horrid grandma 👵🏼 We are reading Fantastic Mr Fox 🦊 at the moment. He has just lost his tail!!! We are really enjoying these books 📚

Summer in nursery means sunshine (we hope) so we are taking our literacy activities OUTSIDE!

Spring Term 2021

This half term year 2 have been learning all about the story of Bog Baby. We used our imagination to create our very own creature. We did some drama about going to a location and finding our creature. We then drew pictures of the creature we found to help us with our writing later on in this topic.

To support our story writing in year 2 we were set a challenge to find out if we can use any conjunction in any sentence. Take a look at us in action.

Year 2 have been learning all about similes so that we can use these in our writing. We had to match the similes together and then use these within a sentence.

In year 1 we have been reading the story of Hermelin. We have been practising writing sentences using exclamation marks.

During the first half of Spring Term we worked on a book called Juniper Jupiter. Over the weeks we explored adjectives, story maps and writing simple sentences to tell a story. In Phonics we began to learn the Phase 3 sounds.

Spring 2 started with a bang in nursery. A beanstalk grew, magic beans were found, golden eggs had treasures inside and giants footprints....all this lead to great discussion from the children both with an adult and in their play with their peers.

This half term in Nursery we have been learning all about the author Eric Carle. We have read lots of his stories, either in person or through videos on tapestry. We have used his books to create lots of art and sculpture work. We also have been enjoying lots of games linked to phase 1 of phonics.

Autumn Term 2020

Class 6 have been experimenting with using a range of conjunctions this week to write about our story book The Night Gardener.

Authors we have been learning about in the Autumn Term

This half term Year 2's English lessons are based on a new book called 'The Night Gardener' by The Fan Brothers. We have been looking at pictures from the book and writing expanded noun phrases to describe what we can see and thinking about what the author is trying to tell us.

Class 6 have been learning about Michael Rosen for our author week. In this lesson we read the story of We're going on a Bear Hunt and decided on actions for the words. Take a look at us in action.

In class 6 our author this Autumn term is Michael Rosen. We have created our own version of the poem 'These are the hands' . We made a prediction what might happen at the end of the story Chocolate cake. We also wrote about which part we liked best in the story of Rover.

This week in English Class 6 started to look at a new book called A River by Marc Martin. Today we pretended we were in the jungle. We closed our eyes and listened to a real life jungle. After this , we spoke about all the images and things we pictured in our heads.

In class 3 we have been reading 'Rapunzel'. Children took turns acting out how they thought a witch would walk and talk. Then a few children told the rest of the class how they would feel if they were trapped in a tower.

In F2 there are always opportunities for writing. The children have been practicing writing their name and the letter sounds we have been learning. Children have explored mark making both indoors and outdoors and through role play activities.

In classes 1 and 2 the children have been accessing the books independently and have enjoyed sharing books both indoors and outdoors.

A huge part of our English work in F1 is really getting know a story through role play. This week (week beginning 23rd November) we were reading "The Train Ride", to help act out the story we create a huge train for the children to use during their play. We also created our own train journey using a story map.

Here in nursery we love mark making. Mark making is the very beginning of children writing. They can often tell exactly what they have "written" and take great pride in what they have done. We mark make in lots of different ways, from brushes on the outside walls to chalk boards to clipboards and pens, we even mark make in mud! These marks are the start to their journey to being authors and artists.

We love books in nursery. We always have a story of the week and read story everyday. Children can access books all through the day and we encourage children to role play stories they have read. We also learn a nursery rhyme a week to help with all elements of literacy.