Term 2: 2024/5
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St James' Writing Blog: Term 2
We are so proud that we have so many children at St James' that love to write!
We have created this blog to showcase some of the incredible pieces of work that our children have created.
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Year 4
Last term, the children in Year 4 completed an Opening Door
s unit surrounding the narrative ‘The 5 Children and It’ by Edith Nesbit. The children begun by exploring different fictional characters in a range of famous narratives such as ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Skellig’ and wrote character descriptions.
They then were introduced to Nesbit’s narrative, analysed an extract and discussed the different techniques the author used. This was done using an Opening Door technique called ‘Radial Layouts’. This is a technique that involves the children answering a ‘big question’, in this case ‘How does Nesbit make this extract so dramatic?’. They answer this question through answering smaller ones that are easier for the children to comprehend. Here is a fantastic example completed by Iris in Malawi class. We love how she has used full sentences to answer the questions. Iris
After developing their knowledge of the text, the children used this story to create their own fictional character in the style of ‘it’. Some of the creations that Year four came up with blew their teachers away. They then used these characters to plan and write their own novels in the style of Edith Nesbit.
Year 4 also dipped their toes into a bit of poetry last term! They studied the 'Great City' by Harold Monro and wrote some of their own poems in his style. We are so proud of their creations! Some children even earned a visit to Mr Brown!
Teddy
Szaff
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Year 3
Last term, Year 3's topic was 'Railway Revolution' which included learning about how the Industrial Revolution changed Britain and the lives of the people. Within this, Year 3 read the children's version of Oliver Twist and fell in love. They even read an extract from the original text by Charles Dickens describing when Oliver walks into Victorian London. We decided to get the children to write a Taster Draft where they would continue on writing from this extract and mimic the style of Dickens. The Year 3 staff were blown away by some of the descriptions that the children came up with. Here are just a few to highlight what incredible writers we have in Year 3.
The children also wrote descriptions about the character Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist and then re-wrote his famous scene where Oliver asks for more.
After all this, the children became intrigued to learn more about Charles Dickens. After researching about him and his life, the children came to understand that he is one of the most famous and well regarded writers of all time. We decided to get them to write a biography on Charles Dickens to show what they had learnt.
After writing their drafts in their English books and editing what they had done, the children published their work onto one A3 sheet.
They focussed on writing about his early life, early career, his novels and his later life.
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Year 6
Last term, Year 6's topic was 'War and Remembrance'. The children spent a lot of time learning about the tragic events of the war and discussed the emotions that soldiers might have felt. Fear, terror, pride, courage, were just some of the emotions that the children imagined the soldiers had felt. Year 6 decided to portray what they had learnt in the form of poetry. They used extended metaphors and personified emotions to make their writing high quality. We were so proud of what the children were able to produce and the level of understanding they were able to show. Well done Year 6!
The children also spent some time in their English lessons learning about how vital letters were during the war. Not only as a method of communication between soldiers and armies but as a way of connecting with loved ones back home. They discussed how important these letters might have been to not only the soldiers fighting on the front line but for those back home who were worrying about their loved one. The children were also made aware of how crucial it was for the soldiers to not give away any information about where they were and how this impacted the letters content. Here is an example of a very moving letter written by one of our Year 6's.
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Year 5Year 5 had a very exciting term with their 'Young Enterprise' topic. The children created their own product and had to sell it at our Winter Wonderland. Within this task, the children had to learn how to advertise in order to sell a product. They discovered how businesses use language to encourage people to try their product and to make it sound appealing. Here are a few examples of our Year 5's having a go at writing a description of a delicious M&S rocky road.
After this, the children created their product and decided to make instructions to show how they had done this.
They made sure to include imperative verbs, adverbs, subheadings and time connectives.
Last term, Year 5 also had the opportunity to read and analyse one of the greatest children's novels of all time 'The 
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'.
This text always brings out some incredible and imaginative writing from the children each time we teach it. The descriptive language and vivid world building in this novel inspires the children to include strategies used by C.S.Lewis in their own writing. Here are some pieces of work we are incredibly proud of.
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Last term Year 1’s topic was ‘A Walk in the Park’. Within this topic, the focus was on the children learning sentence construction. This was supported by ‘woodland’ themed stories and these helped the children to sequence events in a story.
Year 1 children even had the opportunity to go to Kings Park and experience and autumnal walk in the park. When the children returned from this walk, they wrote a recount of what they saw.
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Year 2 had a lovely project last term which focussed around 'Heroes'.
The children decided to write poems about everyday heroes and what it is to be one. Many of the children came up with some heart-warming responses that made all the adults in the room smile. Here are two poems written by Ethan and Freya about their mums and how they believe they are heroes.
Ethan
Freya
In the week before Christmas, Year 2 also spent some time writing letters to Santa. The children tried to include some key features of letters such as an address, a greeting and writing in paragraphs.
They were very persuasive if we do say so ourselves!
Samuel Freya
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EYFSOur littlest writers in the school have made some fantastic progress in their writing last term. They focussed on the text 'The Gruffalo' by Julia Donaldson and spent a lot of time discussing how description is used in the story. The children learnt how the author describes the Gruffalo and wrote some sentences describing him themselves.
Here are two examples of work which our EYFS teachers were especially proud of because of their fantastic letter formation.
