Welcome to Pentrepoeth Junior School

 14 - 16 September

Ken Harris

Ken Harris was an advisory teacher for English in the county until he took early retirement some years ago.  He came to school for a few days and worked with your children.  His 'rationale' is below.  The work the children produced under his guidance can be found on the left.

The notes are Ken's.  We thought you would like to see what he told us in our staff meeting after school on Monday 21 September.

The Literacy project at Pentrepoeth Junior School has focused on reading/writing links throughout the classes. The work was based on sound educational principles and on a combination of the best features of good practice in the teaching of English. The approach taken might best be described as ‘Fiction-Centered English’, though not exclusively so.

Consequently the main features of the work were that we used:

a range of quality texts; novels, poetry, short stories requiring less sustained concentration, as well as non-fiction;

a balance of the language modes, but an emphasis on lots of speaking/listening, drama activities;

the range of interactive DARTs (reading) strategies;

opportunities for lots of collaborative work;

writing frames for fiction and non-fiction.

In line with the requirements for English in the National Curriculum for Wales, there was also:

a substantial amount of direct teaching

a balance of text centered, sentence and word level work.

Prepare to be amazed at what your children have written!.