In this instalment of our ‘How to use…’ series, we explore the wider offer of Literacy Tree by having a look at the Catch-up Writing Roots. What is the purpose of the Catch-up Writing Roots? The Catch-up Writing Roots can…
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Last month saw the publication of We Need to Talk, the report of the Independent Oracy Education Commission on the future of Oracy Education in England. Oracy is something very close to our hearts here at Literacy Tree. The Commission’s…
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On 8th October, Ofsted published ‘Strong foundations in the first years of school’, a research report which examines how schools can secure the foundational knowledge and skills that every child needs by the end of key stage 1. This report…
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If you were to play a game of Literacy Tree bingo of the key terms we commonly use, you’d be placing a safe bet if you chose ‘live modelling’ as one of your options. We talk about live modelling a…
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The 2014 Curriculum has posed many challenges for teachers and one of the most pressing is ensuring the breadth of coverage in spelling and vocabulary acquisition. There are a hundred words in each KS2 wordlist and multiple spelling rules to…
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At Literacy Tree, we are huge advocates of the value of wordless texts. Communicating through pictures on cave walls was the very first form of storytelling some 40,000 years ago, so this ancestral literary legacy living on must mean something.…
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As we launch our brand-new Whole School Writing Root into the world, we’re excited at the prospect of children and teachers experiencing the joy of Poonam Mistry’s stunning book, The Midnight Panther. Dedicated to ‘anyone who has ever felt different’,…
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This blog post follows on from Impactful Moderation Conversations: Part 1, in which we discussed the value of writing moderation and explored key factors to consider when setting up for internal moderation. In this blog post, we will share a…
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We know that the second half of the Summer Term is a busy time for assessment in primary schools. As the academic year begins to draw to a close, there is a focus on ensuring that end-of-year assessment judgements accurately…
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We are living through a period where LGBTQIA+ people are yet again having to fight for their right to exist and be represented, and this has unsurprisingly permeated through to a discussion around which books are ‘appropriate’ to share with…
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Children’s use of language comes to life when it has a clear audience and purpose – not just because it is an English lesson or because they must tick their way through a checklist, but rather because they are acutely…
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Last term, we began exploring the various considerations needed when choosing which books to use at different points across the school year. In the second part of the blog, we will examine further some of the aspects to take into…
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At Literacy Tree, we believe that it’s crucial for children to encounter a wide range of lives, experiences and cultures through the texts that they read. Diversity to us doesn’t mean ticking a box. It means telling children that people…
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Over the last year, we have added new Writing Roots to our overall Reception provision. These include the beautifully illustrated Ning and the Night Pirates by the talented Adriena Fong as well as the heart warming And Tango makes Three…
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Deciding which texts to use across different parts of the year is one of our favourite things to do with our schools. While we hope that our suggested curriculum maps give schools a starting point with which to work, we…
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In the first of our How to Use series we look at the curriculum maps. This simple guide looks at how to interpret curriculum maps to meet the needs of your own setting. Schools and individual teachers may…
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We were thrilled to send our brand-new Whole School Writing Root into the world earlier this month when it was shared with our lovely subject leaders. And several of our schools have already said that they’re going to explore this…
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Reading matters. As one of the opening sentences in the DFE’s Reading Framework states, “To the individual, it matters emotionally, culturally and educationally; because of the economic impacts within society, it matters to everyone”. Following the initial release of the…
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