English

Children are taught English every day. Following the Primary Framework for Literacy, emphasis is shared between teaching Speaking and Listening, Reading and Writing skills. The formal teaching of handwriting, spelling, punctuation and grammar complements opportunities for the children to share reading, give presentations and use ICT to undertake independent creative writing across a range of genres. Links with the Drama department also provide an introduction to Shakespeare and the theatre.

Children's Author Jon Blake Visits

Children's Author Jon Blake Visits Popular children’s author Jon Blake travelled from his home in Cardiff to visit the school in September. Jon has written humorous and serious fiction for all ages, and has had more than fifty books published, including the Stinky Finger, Little Stupendo and Dogsbottom School series, The Supreme Dream Machine, The Last Free Cat, Mutiny on the School Ship Bounty and Oshie, his most recent book, which details the adventures of an amazing boy with cerebral palsy. Jon has also contributed to the Oxford Reading Tree reading scheme.

Jon ran several sessions working with children from across the school, talking about life as an author and fielding questions on writing for a living. He gave readings from his comic book Holiday Mania at the House of Fun, and played a video presentation based on his best selling picture book You’re a Hero, Daley B. He also ran a creative writing workshop for the older children, encouraging them to come up with their own ideas for character driven fiction.

Jon left behind a number of signed copies of his books, which are available to borrow from the Prep School Library. You can find out more about Jon by visiting his website at www.jonblake.co.uk.

Poetry Writing Competition

Congratulations to these two pupils for winning the Prep School Poetry Writing Competition with their poems on the theme of 'Heroes and Heroines'.

Shoo Rayner Visits

Author and illustrator Shoo Rayner visited the school to run some inspirational workshops on story writing in October. Shoo has illustrated books for authors including Michael Morpurgo, Rose Impey and Michael Rosen, adapted Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories and written over one hundred books of his own, featuring such characters as Viking Vik, Ricky Rocket, Dark Claw and Monster Boy. He told us a little about his life (including how he got that name!) and talked about different approaches to the writing process, as well as reading some of his stories and drawing some of his characters. He also involved the children in some creative writing of their own, before staying for a book signing session after school.

Shoo Rayner visits

Book Week

Book Week, 2009-10 During Book Week all children in the Pre-Prep had the opportunity to write an animal story in a competition judged by visiting author Shoo Rayner - who, after much deliberation, selected a winner from each class. During the week the children also enjoyed dressing up as characters from their favourite books, and all had a great time snuggling up for the ever popular Book at Bedtime...

Ballancing the Books

Young, up and coming author and illustrator, and old Blundellian, James Ballance visited Year 3 to show some of his original artwork and to read from his story The Prince King.

Ballancing the Books

[Click here to see some poems written by Year 4 children.]

Aims of the English dept.

To teach the youngest children reading, writing and spelling through a phonetic structured approach.
To equip the children with the literacy skills with which they can access the wider curriculum.
To seek to develop an interest in and appreciation of literature for its own sake.
To foster confidence and develop skills in the key areas of speaking and listening, reading and writing.
To express themselves imaginatively and creatively and communicate with others effectively.

Course Content

Emphasis is on developing speaking and listening and reading skills, through word building and synthetic phonics and through group discussion and role play.
Spelling rules, sentence building and handwriting. This in turn leads on to composition and formal comprehension work.
To develop higher order reading skills including inference and deduction, and will have the opportunity to write extended compositions across a range of fiction and non-fiction genres.
Comprehension, spelling lists, handwriting, stories, poems, library skills and reading aloud will happen throughout every year.
To develop higher order writing skills, advising, arguing, persuading, informing, describing, analysing and reviewing.

A variety of theme days each term, formal school trips and visits from story tellers and actors enhance the English curriculum across the school. The introduction of our own Study Skills course across Years 3 to 6 also adds to the breadth the children experience.