English
At Gomer Infants School we have designed a quality English curriculum that will develop a love for reading, writing and spoken language. Our curriculum provides many fun and purposeful opportunities for reading, writing and talk.
Curriculum Intent – English
Subject Champions
For each subject we now have Subject Champions who share their voices and ideas with school leaders.
The Subject Champions for English are:
- Dolphins – Jasmine
- Seals – Evalyn
- Butterflies – Theo
- Bumblebees – Teddy
Reading
Phonics
All of our children are taught phonics using the Read Write Inc. programme. To find out more about RWI, please watch these short videos:
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Year R Phonics Workshop
It was lovely to see so many parents and carers at our workshop, if you would like to re-visit the information we shared please click here.
Reading for Pleasure
Every class has an inviting book-corner where the children can relax and enjoy a good book.
Each half-term we chose a different author to focus on. The children are able to talk about which books they have enjoyed reading the most and share their opinions with others.
We also have a very inviting school Library and we take part in lots of reading events and experiences (see our blog below).
Writing
Handwriting
At Gomer Infant School we teach handwriting through a scheme called Kinetic Letters.
Kinetic letters is a unique handwriting programme that believes good, fast and fluent handwriting underpins success in every curriculum area. It is based on a physical programme where children learn handwriting and letter formation through movement and multisensory experiences, developing core body strength.
Learning letters by movement helps writing and concentration and also makes handwriting automatic, freeing up space in the working memory for other learning.
The Kinetic Letters programme uses four main threads:
- Making bodies stronger
- Learning the letters
- Holding the pencil
- Flow and fluency
It enables children to develop legible handwriting that is produced quickly and automatically. With the development of automaticity, handwriting becomes a valuable tool and not a hindrance to learning.
Every class in the school takes part in Kinetic Letters lessons which focus on letter formation and then body strength and pencil grip are continuously reinforced throughout the school day in every lesson.
Pencil Grip
Bounce and Skip
Each letter family is introduced to the children through a story about two monkeys called Bounce and Skip. Bounce is a brave monkey and helps write the tall letters whilst Skip is a scared monkey and helps write the other letters.
Children are taught all of the Kinetic Letter families, upper case letter formation and number formation:
| Letter Families | Capital Letters & Numbers |
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Here is the link to their website for further information. If you have any further questions then please ask your child’s class teacher for more information.
Writing Journey
We use a range of high quality texts that bring the learning to life and incorporate these into our writing journey. The children are encouraged to write for a variety of different purposes and audiences using the skills and techniques they have learned along the way.
Our Reading Blog!
June 2024
We have just launched the Summer Reading Photo Challenge 2024. Children are invited to ask an adult to take a photo of them reading in a funny or unusual place and send it into school. Everyone who completes the challenge will be entered into a draw with the winners receiving book vouchers to spend at our upcoming Travelling Book Fair.
May 2024
Read for Good Readathon! Children were invited to take part in a sponsored reading event with money raised going to support Read for Good which help buy books for children in hospital and also for our school.
Thank you to all the children who took part, you’ve managed to raise over £1000 in sponsorship money – we are blown away by this and can’t wait to buy some new books for our school.
March 2024
Our Year 1 children really enjoyed being part of the Hampshire Picture Book Awards. They loved reading and sharing the shortlisted books and were then involved in voting for their favourite book. This was not only part of our Reading for Pleasure but it also links to British Values and Democracy – having our say and being able to vote. We will find out who are winner is soon!
We had a live link session with the author Joseph Coelho. He talked to the children about how he became an author which we hope will inspire some of the children for their future. We also celebrated Joseph Coelho’s books during National Storytelling Week and the children have really been enjoying his poems and stories this term.
The children and staff looked amazing to celebrate World Book Day. We always love reading but had extra fun today sharing stories, telling stories, having a book day parade and so much more – happy reading everyone!
February 2024
Looking ahead to World Book Day in March, we launched our Book Day Character Competition. Using a toilet roll, we invited children to create their favourite book character – they are on display in our library and look fantastic! Our Young Governors had the tricky task of choosing the winners.
January 2024
National Storytelling Week – We all listened to Luna Loves Art by Joseph Coelho. We talked about our favourite books and discussed these with our friends. We are looking forward to a teacher book share swap as well!
Reading Cafes – Each year group has held a Reading Cafe, the children have been enjoying sharing a book and reading activities with their parents – and a drink and biscuit too!
October 2023
Nursery Rhyme Day – Year R children and staff dressed up as their favourite nursery rhyme characters and enjoyed reading and reciting nursery rhymes to help develop their literacy skills.
National Poetry Day (5th October) – we celebrated by listening to, reading and writing lots of lovely poems. Mrs Lloyd also shared a poem with each class and launched a competition for the children to have a go a writing a poem.
September 2023
The author we are celebrating during Autumn half term is David McKee. David McKee is a writer and illustrator and has created many characters and book series, including the Elmer the Patchwork Elephant series. We have a corner in the library with a selection of the Elmer stories out ready for the children to enjoy.May 2023
We are enjoying books by Lauren Child this half term. Lauren Child is an award winning artist and author and writes stories about various characters including Charlie and Lola. The Charlie and Lola books follow Lola on her funny adventures with her older brother Charlie, we are lucky enough to have lots of Charlie and Lola books in our library for the children to read.
April 2023
Mick Inkpen is our author of the term for Summer term. Mick Inkpen is a British author and illustrator and is best know for his stories about the adventures of Kipper the Dog and friends, and Wibbly Pig, both of which have also been made into animated television series. A selection of these books are out in the library for the children to enjoy.
March 2023
Our Author of the Term is Sue Hendra. Sue Hendra is a very funny, award-winning author and illustrator of some of our favourite picture books, like Barry the Fish with Fingers, Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell and the bestselling Supertato series. A selection of these books are displayed in the library for the children to read and enjoy.
We are also looking forward to celebrating World Book Day on Friday 3rd March. To find out more about how you can help to encourage a love of reading, have a look at the World Book Day Hub for Families webpage.
February 2023
The children were challenged to read a book in an unusual place and send in a photo – the most unusual place won a prize!
October 2022
This half term our author focus is Nick Butterworth, famous for the amazing ‘Percy the Park Keeper’ books, but he has written so many more! A display in our library is available for the children to come and explore some of his books.
We were very excited to have The Gruffalo join the Year 1 Forest session. Mrs Lloyd received a special letter from him in response to some writing the children had been doing. Whilst here, the Gruffalo also popped in to see all of the children around school. A very exciting day was had by all!
September 2022
The 13th September was Roald Dahl day, because of this we have made him our author of the term. Today and throughout this half term children will hear stories and rhymes from the wonderful Roald Dahl!
May 2022
We are looking forward to welcoming children’s author, Kirsty Applebaum, to our school this month to talk to the children. There will also be an opportunity for children to have a book signed by Kirsty.
March 2022
We began our World Book Day celebrations by inviting parents into school to share a story with their children. It was so lovely to see parents back in the building and enjoying books with us. We will be holding another of these events soon!
World Book Day was so much fun! Everyone’s costumes were amazing and it was lovely to see everyone in school (including all the adults) taking part! We had a whole school parade to show of our costumes and throughout the day Mrs. Duffy and Mrs. Lloyd could be seen running through the school shouting “Drop Everything and Read” – when we would all grab a book and sit and enjoy it for a while.
The wonderful bookshop at Lee On Solent arranged for Mrs. Woolley to use all of our book day tokens ensuring that EVERY child went home with a brand new book. Thank you Lee On Solent Book Shop!
The launch of our school vision was also this month and as part of our “Super Teamworker” learning power the Year 2 children came to visit Year R and share a story with them. They were so kind and thoughtful, reading books and talking about the stories with them. It was such a success that we are planning to share a story with other classes more often.
February 2022
February saw the launch of our “Who’s Whonicorn” competition. Mrs. Lloyd shared one of her favourite stories with the school and invited the children to create their own “Whonicorn” character. We were so overwhelmed with the amazing designs that every child received a book mark for taking part and one child from each class was chosen as a winner and received a wonderful new story to enjoy.
