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 2’s Fairground Adventure
To start their new writing unit, based on the book The Midnight Fair, Year 2 went to the Queen’s Hill Fairground. They played hook a flamingo, hoopla, splat the fish and bean bag toss. They even got to play the tin can alley which had teachers’ faces on them! They had a great morning and … Read more
Bookshop Visit
Our pupils had an amazing time at Bookbugs and Dragontales Bookshop this week! They had the opportunity to choose new books for our school libraries and even meet the author and illustrator, Ben Rothery, who was working on a window display at the shop. We can’t wait to see the books we selected in the … Read more
Year 6 ‘The Arrival’
This week, Year 6 started their English unit based on the graphic novel, ‘The Arrival’ by Shaun Tan. A graphic novel is a story without words and it can still be just as powerful and detailed. We discussed how every illustration is included for a reason and that if you look very closely you gather … Read more
Year 3 and Reception Buddies
Year 3 had a great afternoon with their reception buddies on Thursday. They were able to ask about their learning this half term and then share their own fantastic Egyptian non-chronological reports. They have worked so hard on them and it was great to celebrate success!
Year 1 & Year 4 buddy research
This week, year one and year four pupils buddied up for an afternoon session of African animal research on the iPads. It was wonderful to see such polite and caring partnerships between our older and younger students. Our year ones went away with lots of interesting and useful facts about meerkats, lions and giraffes which … Read more
Year 2 Writing
This morning the Year 2 children came into their classrooms and found all of their chairs had been taken away! Luckily this week they have been learning how to use their writing skills to persuade someone so they quickly wrote letters and made posters for their teachers to convince them to give their chairs back. … Read more
Shakespeare Day!
To kick-start their new English unit: Romeo & Juliet, Year 6 enjoyed participating in a variety of Shakespeare-related activities! Children took part in a scavenger hunt, collecting the answers to questions about the famous playwright and his works. They had to match symbols on their sheet to answers hidden away all around the playground. They … Read more
