At Elmhurst we believe that literacy is a fundamental skill that is essential for success in all subjects throughout life.
We have a comprehensive and engaging programme for our children to develop their literacy skills .
Mr Creighton spent "a lovely afternoon" interviewing our kids about literacy.
We would like to share a few quotes our children made.
"The writing processes really help us a lot as individuals as we each spend a certain amount of time on each one. We can share and discuss our ideas with each other. Before it was the teaching telling us what to write but now that we go through the writing processes, we have to -get to - do it all ourselves, it feels like you are really writing. We are really writing! Teachers value our ideas more. We all get a chance to make something special. It’s great that we each get to write our own stories. "- Tahmid, Y6
"I really like this new way of learning writing because it actually teaches us how to be authors. It used to be that the teachers decided what to write but now we get to express our own ideas." Manha, Y5
"Since we have all the mini-lessons and the publishing goals, writing seems more fun. I love that other people actually get to read our writing. It can be difficult to find the right words sometimes but it gets easier every day because we learn new things every day. We get the tools we need to work it all out for ourselves." Romisha, Y5
"Looking at pictures in picture books is something I didn’t really do enough of before. Sometimes you think the illustrations are just like little things but there’s actually so much detail and importance in them. Doing things like that opens up reading for us in a totally new way. I used to find reading difficult and would need to go back over the same bits again and again but now the way we really break the books apart and dive into them, it makes it so much clearer and easier to understand. I also have my teachers and my friends to help me because the lessons are all about talking about books." Ridhima, Y6
"Miss Ford reads to make herself calm. I know she’s a real reader because she’s always reading a book during reading time when we are. I definitely find that encouraging." Ridhima, Y6
"She always has new books and she lets us borrow them after she’s read them and then talks to us about them. She isn’t just a teacher, she’s a reading buddy, a student herself." Tahmid, Y6
"When you grow up you have to make your voice heard and stand up for yourself. You can’t just stand in the shadows and let other people talk for you. Debating teaches you to use your voice and to let it take you places - you could even end up in the Houses of Parliament. "Safa, Y5
