Reading Road Map

The children (and the adults!) are loving their new Reading Road Map books this term. All children have a variety of beautiful books to choose from and they get the chance to read all of them by the end of the school year. The texts are carefully chosen and are a mixture of non-fiction, fiction and poetry; they show representations of different cultures, countries and themes that reflect our Northside community. Already, children are receiving their Bronze and Silver certificates in Celebration Assembly and they are clearly very proud of their reading achievements so far! Keep it up!

Nursery Rhyme Week

From 17th to the 23rd November, we are celebrating Nursery Rhyme Week. Each class will learn a nursery rhyme together which they will perform to the rest of the school in a special poetry recital on Thursday, 22nd November. All the children and adults can come to school dressed up as a nursery rhyme character to celebrate this special week. 

Reading Bookmarks

Your child will soon receive a bookmark with questions on it to help you support them with their reading at home. The children can use it to help them write meaningful comments in their reading records.

Parents' Reading Workshop

At the beginning of November, Ms Greenhill delivered a workshop about the importance of reading and how to best support your child at home with their reading. If you missed it, the Powerpoint can be found on the Key Documents page.  

Curriculum/ Handwriting Policy

In collaboration with Queenswell, we are in the process of writing a new Federation-wide Handwriting Policy. This is in response to the publication of a new writing framework by the Government. Watch this space!

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a huge focus for us and we are working hard to increase and develop the use of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary in our school. We are in the process of finalising a document for parents which highlights between 5 and 10 key words for each subject per half-term for each year group. This is designed to help you use the vocabulary that we are teaching at home, so the children are more likely to recall the words, ensuring that they go into their long term memory. 

Northside Novelist

This year, we will be continuing with our Northside Novelist sessions once a term. The children really enjoy some free writing time and we have planned in some lovely ways to inspire them when writing. This term, they will be watching one of the exciting Christmas adverts on our television screens and will create a descriptive piece of writing inspired by that.  We will be choosing winners who will get to share their stories on these very pages. 

Learning Walks and Book Discussions

The Senior Leadership Team had a wonderful day last half-term visiting all the classes to see the fabulous learning going on in our English classrooms. As always, it was great to see the progression as we journeyed from nursery through to Year 6 and it was evident how much the children were inspired to flourish in their learning.