Reading Road Map

The children (and the adults!) are very excited about the arrival of our Reading Road Map books, this term. All children will have a variety of beautiful books to choose from and they will 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. We will send the children home with their Reading Map and a book as soon as they arrive so please ensure they are reading them and writing a comment in their Reading Records-daily. 

Request Box

Each class has a box and some pieces of paper next to it so that if the children can think of something they would really like, they can write it down and pop it in the box. Then, when we are able to, we can buy books that the children have asked for!

Writing Top Tens

Each class has a list of Top Ten Tips to help when the children are writing; they directly link with our Northside Writing Curriculum. These are on this page and are also available on each class page. They are useful because they are broken down and written in a way that the children can access independently or with the help of an adult.

If the children use these as a checklist when writing, it is clear to see where the children are achieving what is expected of them for their age group but also to see where some improvements need to be made.

Please, feel free to download, print or save these and use them where necessary. It can also be useful to have a look at the previous year’s objectives so that you can work on any gaps as well as working in the current year group objectives. 

There are also visuals mats, for each year group, to ensure all children can access the Top Ten Tips for their class. 

Reading Top Tens

Following the success of the Writing Top Tens, we have created some top tips to help support the children with their reading. These also link directly to our Northside Reading Curriculum. These help the children to see what they need to be able to do to achieve the age-related expectations for their year group. The Reading Top Tens are available on your child's class page and they will also be in the Key Documents tab on this page. These have been designed to link to our Northside Reading Overview and are progressive through each year group. Alongside these, we have created a visuals mat for the inference skills that all children will learn throughout their time in school. Please, have a look and reinforce this at home. 

Your child will receive a bookmark with questions on to help you support them with their reading at home. You could also have attend the Reading Workshop that will be delivered to parents in October as there will be some more information about how we teach reading at Northside and some suggestions about how to support your children at home. 

Curriculum

We have worked hard to ensure that objectives are progressive and that our Northside Values and Terrific Texts are at the core of our teaching and learning. All overviews are being used to plan lessons and they can all (Reading, Writing and Spelling) can be found in the Key Documents tab on this page. 

Northside Book Day

World Book Day is one of our favourite days of the year! We can't wait to celebrate all things literature! This year, we will be celebrating on Thursday, 7th March. We will have a dress-up day and the children will all take part in some exciting activities. I aim to enlist the Reading Ambassadors to help plan the day so please look out for updates and information in the weekly newsletter. All children will also watch a production of 'The Little Prince' (performed by M&M productions) and be allowed time to write straight afterwards. 

Policy

Our English Policy includes all aspects of English-phonics and reading and writing. We use Little Wandle to deliver daily phonics lessons  and information on that can be found in the blurb about Phonics at Northside on our Reading page. 

‘The Inclusive Classroom’-Staff Book Club Book

As a staff, we are forever learners and as part of that we read books to continually develop our understanding and practise. At the moment, we are reading ‘The Inclusive Classroom’ by Daniel Sobel and Sara Alston which has given us lots of ideas and things to implement in our classrooms. We are really enjoying discussing ideas about how to implement new strategies for adapting our teaching to meet the needs of all pupils.  

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is still a big focus for us and we are working hard to increase and develop the use of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary in our school. All classrooms have Word Walls and Knowledge Organiser displays where children can see and use the new words they come across and we have lessons about vocabulary in all subjects across the curriculum.

Each class has introduced a 'Word of the Day' to increase the children's vocabulary and many classes are using vocabulary bookmarks for the children to write down any new words they learn while reading during DEAR time. 

We have created a vocabulary overview so that you can see the vocabulary that will be taught in different subjects throughout the year and this is available on our curriculum page.

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 events as stimuli to inspire them when writing. Starting from their next piece, we will be choosing winners that will get to share their stories with other classes and their writing will be published online. Watch this space!

Learning Walks and Book Discussions

We will be continuing with our Learning Walks and Book Discussions and I look forward to visit all classes over the coming term.