The use of high quality literature is important in schools; it expands its readers' horizons, opening minds to concepts and themes such as hope, freedom and justice, as well as providing vital insights into historical settings with geographical and scientific knowledge woven within as part of the narrative.

All our texts sit within literary themes. We believe strongly that these help children make deeper connections with text as they build their liteary repertoire and can compare and contrast books.

Look above at our full thematic map which schools can adopt or adapt to suit their own topics.

Texts are always selected for their quality and significance. There is a wide variety including classics, award-winning texts (Carnegie, Kate Greenaway, Guardian, Newbery and Caldecott) and celebrated and significant authors such as children’s laureates and poet laureates. The range includes novels, novellas, picture books, wordless texts, narrative poems, playscripts and narrative non-fiction. We choose books that include characters and authors from a range of cultures and backgrounds, queer authors and characters and stories about varied family paradigms as well as stories with disabled writers and protagonists.

Within the range, there is a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction genres, such as historical narrative, mystery, adventure and fantasy.

All plans include discovery points to generate interest, engage and activate inference. These link to the books’ themes and employ elements of dramatic conventions, which are maintained and addressed across the sequence.

Plans include explicit grammar objectives so that the grammar skills for writing are seen in context and can be applied within writing. These can be taught ‘discretely’ yet creatively, and still embedded firmly within the context of the book.

In addition, planning integrates spelling investigations and activities, so that patterns and rules can be explored, discovered and then used purposefully within writing.

Built into the plans are a variety of shorter and longer writing opportunities that are purposeful and pertinent to particular points of text. Children are encouraged to write in role, with bias and for a distinct audience, rather than writing in one fixed genre for the whole planning sequence.

Collectively the sequences help children build a literary repertoire; develop a knowledge of significant authors and prepares them for the subject content of critical reading at Key stage 3.

This can best be answered who have used our planning sequences throughout their schools to support their agenda in raising attainment in writing:

'Literacy Tree has without question brought about a dramatic improvement in the quality of children's writing - particularly the boys - and I was so proud at our cross-school moderation meeting when our children's writing had all sorts of literary features which they were using very naturally’

Dan Paton, Deputy Headteacher, Arnot St Mary Primary, Liverpool.

'Our GSP and writing scores were fantastic this year due to all Literacy Tree's planning sequences we follow. We were 93% Expected and 53% Greater Depth when 2 years ago we were 65% expected.’

Amanda Webb, Headteacher, Talavera Junior School, Hampshire

We run an extensive online training programme that supports all aspects of the delivery, subject knowledge and pedagogy of the Teach Through a Text approach – including webinars, workshops and planning surgeries – the majority of which comes as part of a school membership. We also provide in-person and remote INSET, consultancy and staff meetings, including planning support, curriculum mapping, monitoring, moderation, team teaching and staff meetings and our consultants are happy to travel to work with your school. In the past year we have delivered book-based training across the UK, Europe and globally. Please contact us to discuss your training and INSET needs: info@literacytree.com

Every year group includes at least one Writing Root using a poetry text.  These are usually narrative poems such as Night Mail in Y6, Jabberwocky in Y4, Jim, A Cautionary Tale in Y3, or The Owl and the Pussy-cat in Y2.  Within these sequences children have opportunities to write poetry as well as other types of writing that stem from the poem such as letters and diaries, as well as specific work on comprehension/literary language.  We have chosen these because their narrative form lends itself to engagement across an extended period in a similar way to narrative prose.

As well as this, many other Writing Roots include explicit opportunities for poetry reading and writing within the sequence of learning, such as within Can We Save the Tiger in Year 6, children study The Tyger by William Blake and within The Tempest children study and learn some of Shakespeare’s poetry.  There are also other opportunities within specific sequences to write poems such as within Cinnamon, children write limericks to mirror the one within the book.

Alongside this, Literacy Tree includes works by poet laureates such Carol Ann Duffy and Ted Kooser.  In terms of reading comprehension, Literary Leaves offer opportunity for the discrete study of poems and poetic form, from Year 2 onwards. There are poetry collections from significant poets as well as anthologies around a theme.

Across Literacy Tree's curriculum there are specific non-ficton texts including information books (The Great Fire of London), illustrated biographies (Pride, The Man who Walked between the Towers), fictional explanations (Until I Met Dudley) and narrative non-fiction (Can We Save the Tiger).  These lead to a variety of longer and shorter fiction, non-fiction and poetry outcomes depending on the context.  Other non-fiction outcomes are covered as part of other (fiction and poetry) Writing Roots, including non-chronological reports, biographies, explanation texts, letters and newspaper reports (both using fictonal and non-fiction contexts).

In addition, Literary Leaves include a variety of non-fiction titles from Year 2 through to Year 6, where children have the opportunity to explore reading comprehension within non-fiction books.

School members receive one free place on each of our half-termly planning surgeries as well as our subject leader sessions, to support you to adopt and embed the curriculum in your setting.