School Improvement Team

English

Last week our English consultant, Stephen Graham, visited us at Mackellar again. During his visit, he visited our Prep, Grade 4 and Grade 5 classrooms and worked with our wonderful teachers and students.

Stephen worked with our Prep students to practise writing literary descriptions using the describing perspectives colour, position, texture and doing. He started by reading the story 'The Snake Cake' and then our Prep students wrote some fantastic descriptive sentences about the main character, the Queen. Stephen was incredibly impressed with the amazing writing our Prep students are doing!

Whilst visiting our Grade 4 students, Stephen worked with them on their current text type, Information Report. He supported students to understand the structure of an information report, whereby the text moves from a macro topic into micro sub-topics. Stephen also made links to the Grade 4s' current Geography unit, drawing upon content from this unit to support students to write their own information reports. 

In Grade 5, Stephen worked with students to understand the language features and structure of a factual narrative. He used the text 'You've Got Buckley's!' to demonstrate how a factual narrative combines historically accurate information (such as people and places) with fictional elements. Our Grade 5 students really enjoyed unpacking this text and learning where the saying 'you've got Buckley's' originated. Stephen will return to work with our Grade 5s again this week to support them as they begin writing their own factual narratives. 

Stephen was very impressed with the quality of work being produced in English at Mackellar and we look forward to continuing our work with him throughout the remainder of the year.

Meghann Wurm