English
My name is Mrs Orbison and I am the English Lead at Sherdley Primary School. I joined the school over 20 years ago and have taught across the Key Stages through the years. I started the role of English Lead in September 2021.
At Sherdley Primary School, we base our English teaching of writing through using high-quality texts, chosen for particular grammar and text focuses. Our lessons develop the use of effective vocabulary and grammar within different types of writing. We teach our children how to edit and improve their work and take pride in the overall handwriting presentation.
After completing the Little Wandle reading programme, our children will begin to follow the school's Book Band system. Each child will have a book matched to their reading ability, to take home and read.
We are currently developing a whole class reading approach, to teach our children how to further understand the context and vocabulary used in a variety of text types and topics. We re-read the same text to improve the reading fluency and gain a deeper understanding of what has been read. Each day, we have a specific focus to enable us to teach them how to understand an age-appropriate text extract, in preparation for them leaving us at the end of Y6, being confident readers, who can access an eclectic selection of books.
We also simply enjoy reading longer, high-quality texts with our classmates, as each class has a fiction and non-fiction text to read together, each day, linked to the topics being covered that half term. There's also the opportunity for every child to borrow any book from class libraries, to share at home. These can be changed at any point.
All Y2-6 Sherdley pupils have been assigned a login to the Spelling Shed site. This site is designed to help pupils to learn spellings in a fun and engaging way. Spelling lists are assigned individually to all pupils, to match their stage of learning. We started using Spelling Shed in 2022 and know the children enjoy achieving the honeypots.
Spelling Shed is a simple, fun web-game that is playable through any internet browser on phones, tablets or computers. Each week, pupils will be assigned a spelling rule that they have been focussing on in class, pupils can also select ‘More Lists’ if they would like to revisit past assignments.
To ensure your child is given a level of challenge appropriate to them, they can choose from four levels of difficulty. The game is also designed to be dyslexic-friendly.
- Easy – The word is shown, an audio clip is played and only the included letters are shown.
- Medium – An audio clip is played and only the included letters are shown.
- Hard – An audio clip is played and the included letters, plus some random letters are shown.
- Extreme – An audio clip is played and a full qwerty keyboard is shown. Letters must be correctly accented and capitalised.
All users have an avatar that can be personalised by using honeypots. Honeypots are earned by spelling words correctly. Pupils can also keep track of how their score compares to other pupils. The more you play the higher the score you will achieve.
Please contact your class teacher if you do not know your child's login.