Entries by admin

Supporting Children’s Wellbeing Through Story by Tre Christopher

Never have we needed a love of story more than now. According to research children who are the most engaged with literacy are three times more likely to have higher levels of mental wellbeing than children who are the least engaged. Storytelling is as old as the hills and stories have always played a key […]

Decodable Books and Picture Books – Not an Either/Or!

Phonically decodable books are back in the spotlight since the DfE brought out the new Core Criteria for phonics and published The reading framework: teaching the foundations of literacy in July this year. I’ll be honest – I’m a fan of phonically decodable books. I’ve seen first-hand how closely matched phonically decodable books can help […]

Using Writing Journals in the Primary Classroom

Try Writing Journals and revolutionise your children’s independent writing! Writing Journals (sometimes called Author’s Notebooks) are vocabulary books in which children can capture gorgeous language that they can use again and again in the stories and texts that they write. They are a type of personal thesaurus that children can refer to, supporting all forms […]

Closing the Learning Gap in English

Key Recommendations for Schools After such a difficult year, schools are now faced with the challenge of closing the gap in educational achievement in English. While we may not yet know the full impact of school closures, it is becoming apparent that the already prevalent gap in achievement of pupils living in poverty has widened […]

Poem A Day Project

The Primary Poem a Day Project! We are so excited to launch our ‘Poem A Day’ Project! The aim of the project is to encourage teachers to commit to sharing a poem with their class on a daily basis ( this could be the teacher choosing and reading the poem or the children taking in […]

The Power of Poetry

…and a ‘Poem a Day’.   There are oodles of benefits to sharing poetry with your class. It is a fabulous way of introducing pupils to new vocabulary and helping children to explore imagery and figurative language. (It is in poetry that elements such as metaphor and simile really come to life.) Imagine the language […]