Blog Author: Bev Brown

Every child deserves success right from the start.

We know that the sooner children learn to read, the greater their success at school. This is why we put reading at the heart of what we do at Alston Primary School.

We use a programme called Read Write Inc. Phonics to teach our children to…

Today we had a visit from Cumbria Fire & Rescue. The firefighters talked about fire safety ahead of bonfire night and showed us how to power the hose so we could knock the bottle off the cone. We got to sit in the fire engine, see the flashing lights and hear the siren!

We all had a fantastic…

As part of our science topic we have been talking about seasonal changes, day length and seasonal events such as bonfire night. We enjoyed creating some firework pictures during linked learning today and also had a chat about firework safety

This morning, in Science, we have been on an Autumn walk to see if we could notice all of the changes of the season. We saw some leaves falling from the trees and found pine cones and evergreen trees too. It is fantastic to take our learning outside of the classroom so that we can see first hand…

We are very fortunate to have access to the Read, write Inc virtual classroom and share clips with families to support children's reading at home. 

In addition to sending the clips home we also use them in class to provide extra booster sessions and 1:1 bespoke teaching, helping every child on…

At Alston Primary School we work hard to foster a life long love of reading and have our RWI mascots Fred and Fredwina to help us with this mission. Over the past half term Fred and Fredwina have been extremely busy visiting a range of children and have really enjoyed sharing cosy story times and…

At Alston Primary School early reading is taught through our school's chosen programme, Read Write Inc.

The children are grouped according to their current level of development and are regularly assessed and re-grouped to ensure that they are taught at their individual challenge point.

Our…

We love writing in Cross Fell and it is great to see our learners taking charge of their writing and self assessing it to make sure they have all of their must haves!

A did a fantastic job of being a mini teacher and using her checklist to mark her own work before sharing it with us.

We loved getting hands on with pumpkins today hooking us into our new story Pattan's Pumpkin. There was lots of discussion work about how the pumpkins felt and what they were like inside, experiences like this really help us to build our vocabulary and will help us later on in our work when we…

National Forest School Week!

We’ve had a fantastic time at Forest School celebrating National Forest School Week! We learned lots of interesting facts about badgers and then got creative by designing our very own badger necklaces. 

What a lovely time of outdoor learning, exploring and…

Today the children took part in a virtual visit with the National archives direct from London!

It was fantastic to hear from a range of experts and learn more about the events that took place during the great fire of London.

It was wonderful to also add to this virtual visit by being able to…

Cross Fell have been working hard with Mrs Wheatley in our art sessions to produce some amazing work linked to the great fire of London- top work everyone!