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were talking with the teacher. One started telling a story about finding a
skeleton. The teacher modelled questions which were imitated by his friend:
‘Was it big? Was the head at the top?’ The whole classroom had a persistent
buzz as adults and children talked as they learnt.
61. There was a similar picture in the Reception classroom where every space had
an activity, some related to the current topic and some providing generic
opportunities for learning. In the centre of the room there was a writing station
and a reading area. One girl conducted a reading session here with an adult
volunteer as the ‘pupil’. This mirrored a class reading session with the pupil
using a pointer to trace words while the volunteer read aloud. All children were
positively engaged and there was very little migration from activity to activity.
Children took every chance to write. One girl recorded sandwich choices on a
pad. Others labelled their models or drawings. The teacher and assistant
constantly modelled letter formation, engaged constantly in talk with children,
and took each opportunity to reinforce children’s awareness of letters and
sounds. In the creative play area, the assistant asked questions of boys who
were experimenting with getting water to flow: ‘How will this be better?; What
else could we do?; What happens if we press that?’ The staff took every
opportunity for language development. A boy using the interactive whiteboard
for letter games accidentally loaded the BBC weather site. The teacher noticed
and pointed out the similarity with the class weather board. She helped the
children to get a local weather map and interpret the symbols. They then went
on to explore other days and places.
62. The integration of writing within play activities is very strong and was illustrated
by records of the work of one five-year-old boy. He was playing with cars and
constructing a ‘stunt track’. One of the adults asked him if he could make a sign
to support the work. He eagerly fetched paper and some highlighter pens and
began to write without prompting. He checked what he wrote, using some
upper case letters, and produced a poster:
Stunt Power
You can
Do
cool
stuff
by E…
63. He placed the sign by the side of the track and continued playing. When he
next launched a car into the zone, the adult asked: ‘Are you keeping score?’
The boy replied, ‘Yes, I have one point.’ He reached for a second piece of paper
and recorded this. At the end of the game, he had recorded the number of
points scored and wrote, ‘EJJ wins.’ On another occasion, the boy was using the
smart board to draw a person and then write his name. The teacher asked if he
would like to use the keyboard. The boy said yes and began typing, checking
Excellence in English: what we can learn from 12 outstanding schools
May 2011, No. 100229