Barlborough Hall is a co-educational independent day school and nursery on the border of North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.
During our English review in 2022, we decided that our English needed a shake up and we needed to increase the amount of writing opportunities for the children and reignite our enthusiasm for English as a school. We had an amazingly, inspiring Inset by Pippa. My year 5 colleague and I trialled some of the planning and resources in the summer term. Then autumn term came and as a whole school (Rec-Y6) we embraced the approach, with some advice and guidance from Pippa we decided on The Fox and the Star as a whole school text.
The results have been AMAZING!!! The children love English lessons now, they are even bringing in extra work from home, and a girl in my year 4 class wrote a story over the weekend and printed it to look like a real book with a barcode, a note from the author and thank you at the start. They are all producing more detailed writing with higher order vocabulary, presentation has improved and progression is clear along with the enjoyment for learning. In our recent inspection, it was so easy to give evidence of whole school progression, individual child progression, support and challenge. And this is only the first step, we are all going our own year group way now so it can only get better. Recently, all our year groups have attended the planning surgeries and found them really useful and reassuring that we are doing the right things in our individual classrooms.
It has been so exciting to see the children and my colleagues reignite their love of literature. So, thank you for your time and effort in producing such an inspiring and loveable approach.
Chloe Warburton
English Subject Lead
