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Ellwood Community Primary School

English in Action

English
 
At Ellwood Community Primary School, we follow the statutory guidance in the National Curriculum in England document, which gives an outline of the programme of study for each year group.
Weekly Reading Raffle 
 
Every week children who are ‘Regular Readers’ have their names put into a raffle for the chance to win a book. The raffle is drawn in Celebration Assembly for everyone to celebrate together. Who will win this week? 

Golden Ticket - 120 reads
 
 
Buddy Reading
 
Year 6 pupils take their ‘Buddy’ responsibilities very seriously.  Each week, they look forward to spending time with their buddies in Oak Class. Year 6 children love hearing their buddies as they read their reading book aloud and they are trusted to write a comment in Oak children’s Reading Records!
When Oak children have had time to enjoy reading their book aloud, they choose a book from their book corner for the older children to read to them. The children often choose books from their list of ‘One Hundred Brilliant Books to Read’ so that they can tick it off when they have enjoyed the story.
Both classes have a fantastic time and Year 6 can’t believe the progress that the little ones make.
Read and Rave 
 
We had a fantastic evening delivering a presentation about the importance of reading and how we prioritize it at school. Whilst the parents were listening to the presentation, the children were enjoying themselves in the disco. We were fortunate enough to be able to have Vicky from Gloucestershire Library Service, who talked about the services on offer. She signed new members up on the evening too. At the end of the evening, parents/carers were informed about children staying safe on the internet. The feedback from the event was so positive, we will be holding similar events in the future. 
Festival of Words 
 
Congratulations to our winners! We are proud of their creativity and hard work. 
It was wonderful to hear their short stories being read aloud at the presentation evening by a local Author. 
Read a Book Day - September 2024
 
During the day, all children enjoyed reading and sharing books with each other. There was lots of book talk going on throughout the school and recommendations to friends and teachers. What a fabulous day at the start of the year!
Friday 13th September 
 
To celebrate Roald Dahl day, Year 1 made rocky road biscuits in our 'Willy Wonka Factory'. 
 
We have also been learning the story of the Three Little Pigs and using adjectives to describe the pigs. 
Year 1 enjoying their story sacks!
 
In English the children shared their special toys that have been passed down through their families. We then read the book 'The Sea Saw' which has a lovely link to a special teddy being passed down through a family.
Cheltenham Literature Festival 
 
We had a fantastic morning listening to Rob Biddulph’s journey and inspiration as an author and illustrator. We listened to stories, drew pandas and even made magic wands! 
Now we can’t wait to read about Peanut’s adventures! 
Guided Reading in year 1
Autumn Term 
 
Year 3 studied the book 'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes. Here the children are exploring the emotions of the characters as the Iron Man first arrives.
National Poetry Day 2023
 
We celebrated National Poetry Day by reading, writing and reciting poems in each class. 
Year 4
 
Year 4 read a chapter of Who Let The Gods Out by Maz Evans where a star crashes into a cowshed. We planned a Newspaper report, interviewed a witness and wrote our orientation (5 W's) and paragraphs including direct quotes. 
Year 2
 
This term we have based our English around Jack and the Beanstalk. We orally retold our model text, identified features of the text that we were focussing on to use in our own writing and then applied those features into some great descriptive writing. Finally, after gathering our innovative ideas, we drew a story map of our new version of the traditional tale. We drafted our new stories, before editing and improving. 

This writing then lead into writing a set of instructions of how to trap a mythical creature. We had a great time in the garden, gathering ideas of how we could trap our creatures! 
Year 2 pupils found an unexpected surprise in the garden. They found a little red cape, a hat, a scarf, logs of wood, a picnic basket and even an axe! This reminded us of the Little Red Riding Hood story so we have decided to write our own versions of the traditional tale. 
Year 3 English
 
In English this term we have been studying the story ‘The Happy Prince’ by Oscar Wilde. We have been busy writing from different points of views and exploring the themes .
Year 1 have had a very exciting start to their English unit. The Naughty Bus is back and has been creating mischief! The children have wrote letters, diary entries and wanted posters so far! 
World Poetry Day - Poetry Recital
 
Following on from the success of learning our Poetry Basket poems, every year group enjoyed performing a poem they had learnt to all of the other children in the school. We were lucky it was dry outside and we able to perform outdoors.
 
No Pens Day
 
All of the children in school took part in No Pens Day. They were learning in a different way and tried to see if they could learn in lessons without having to write. All the children loved taking part and said they would like more time in class to learn without having to write. 
 
Author visit - Andrew Ashwin
 
We had the pleasure of welcoming Andrew Ashwin to school to carry out workshops with children in KS2. Andrew wrote a book called Drumendus. He is a very talented musician too and we were delighted to have music and songs as part of it. At the end of the session we were lucky enough to ask Andrew to sign the copies we have of Drumendus in school. 
 
Author visit - Andy Seed 
 
Andy Seed (author of The Wildlife of the Forest of Dean) visited KS2 and talked all about his book and previous books that he had written. 
 
The children were excited to meet a local author and ask lots of questions about what inspires him to write. At the end of the assembly, the children were split in to year groups and held a competition all about wildlife. Y3 were the champions of the quiz; they answered the most questions correctly. 

Whole-School Theatre Trip

We enjoyed a fantastic start to our English Week at The Courtyard, Hereford, today.  OH YES WE DID!

At the theatre, we laughed, sang, danced and cheered. Our children were superb members of the audience and the staff at the theatre praised their impeccable behaviour and huge enthusiasm.  

We had to wake lots of happy, tired children as we arrived back at school and we were all very excited that it was dark upon our return. We hope the children slept well this evening! Thank you for your support and for allowing your children to experience the magic that was Beauty and the Beast.

Since the trip, our wonderful writers have been busy!  Well done to all of the children for creating fantastic character descriptions of their favourite characters. We love having real purposes and audiences for our writing – and we love having real inspiration to write.  Well done, everybody!  You are all superstars!

Author visit - Charlotte Taylor
 
We had the pleasure of welcoming local author, Charlotte Taylor to school to carry out workshops with all of our children in school. Charlotte has written a series of books about Twigs. She carried out different workshops with the children from Oak Class to Willow Class. The children then were lucky enough to be able to buy a copy of her books after school.