Today, Year 6 took part in their first GDS Writing workshop with the theme of the ‘Victorian gothic’. We read some extracts, “magpie-d” some great phrases that left the reader feeling perplexed and unsettled and then began to explore what curious object we may pick to centre our writing around. As a first draft, the children have written some wonderful short stories and I can’t wait to re-draft and continue with them! Have a read!

Check out Luna from 5A’s amazing story she created during the Arts Fortnight. She based this on Theseus and the Minotaur – the Greek myth that sees tributes selected to enter King Minos’s perilous labyrinth.

In Year 1 and Year 1/2 this half term, the children have been impressing us with their use of the ‘magic pencil’ to help them capitalise and punctuate their writing. In addition to this, we have been doing lots of brilliant work on main clause sentences (M sentences) and using colourful semantics to reinforce this, playing lots of games around structure and vocabulary. Below is an example of a classroom toolkit and chalkboard; we aim for our Writing displays to be clear, visual and accessible for our learners so that they can use what is on there day in, day out. Well done to Mrs Barnes, who uses her classroom space so incredibly well! We really value our environments at ACE.

Miss Jackson’s and Mrs Curtis’s class worked so hard on their creative writing during the Arts Fortnight. The focus was around an action toolkit, creating a tense atmosphere where a child is selected to be entered into King Minos’s Labyrinth as a ‘tribute’. Below is a picture of the children’s published writing alongside a creature they had chosen to replace the Minotaur. This framed their story and loomed over the story as a threatening reminder of what the selected children had to face. A writer who particularly shone in this unit of Writing was Albert. Albert is an avid reader and brought his own idea and storytelling into his story. His flare and choice of vocabulary impressed us so much and he was chosen to read his published writing out at the Arts celebration. Take a read of Albert’s writing; he is a very talented writer.

Check out Nyla’s creative writing, based on the model text ‘Midas’s Warriors’. She did a fantastic job using the action toolkit from our writing and theming her writing around a child who had been selected to enter the Minotaur’s Labyrinth. As well as writing this brilliant piece, she performed it at the Arts celebration and captivated the crowd with her intonation, pace and volume. Well done Nyla!

Handwriting Policy

Writing Policy