'At The Grove, we love books and we believe that they can open our minds to new ideas, new worlds and new adventures. Therefore, from the start of their journey with us, we want the children to be immersed in literature. Yet, achieving this goal, has only been possible through our partnership with Literacy Tree.
We have had the benefit of working with Literacy Tree for nearly seven years now, and they have been central to the development of our English curriculum. They have an excellent range of texts which are carefully chosen, not only to engage and inspire children but also prompt debate and discussion on topics that are pertinent to the children’s own lived experiences. Through engaging with these texts in both Reading and Writing lessons, the children are able to develop their language skills and extend their vocabulary, which in turn helps them to communicate effectively and confident in both spoken and written English. In fact, after reading these texts, the children are excited to write, keen to develop their own writer’s voice while drawing inspiration from the work of these authors. The opportunity to write for a range of different audiences and purposes has allowed all children to excel and as a result, the quality of writing has steadily improved across the school.
We have also enjoyed the professional support that Literacy Tree is able to offer which has included training for the whole school and coaching for the subject leader. In these training sessions, teachers were exposed to the ‘Teach through a text’ approach through carefully chosen texts and activities which inspired them to make changes to their own practice. Perhaps more importantly, they have continued to be supported in this through the Writing Roots, which provide ideas for how different aspects of the curriculum can be taught in meaningful and engaging ways in the classroom. So now, teachers, who were once nervous about this approach, are supporting new teachers to develop their practice in the same way.'
Pictured is one of our corridor displays - this features The Lost Thing work Y5 did using Shaun Tan's wonderful book
Hannah Owen, Deputy Head
