THE LITERACY hour guidance notes, with their much-maligned glossary of useful terms, must have got lost on its way to one small south London primary.
Parents of soon-to-be reception pupils, gathered for an informal introduction to the school and all its works, were pleased that the new strategy could be explained so effortlessly by the Miss who would be leading their innocent darlings into the world of words.
Confident that all was well, the parents were then taken to see the school in action. At each door smiling, industrious children barely looked up from their tasks, and a special atmosphere reigned in the Literacy Miss’s room where her Year 4 charges were engaged in her specialist subject.
The topic of the day was the novel: this the parents were able to surmise because of a useful, apparently frequently-used piece of paper clipped to the blackboard. For listed on the dog-eared poster were the constituents of a novel: character, plot etc.
Taking pride of place were the many different types of writing available, all usefully listed under the heading “Gengre”.
