English

English is central to the entire curriculum and key to all learning. It is through speaking, listening, reading and writing that children learn to understand the world in which they live. Therefore, teaching English is paramount at The Gower School. We aim to foster and develop each child’s ability to communicate effectively in oral and written contexts, with confidence and flair.

Reading and spelling are taught through a wide variety of phonetically-based Montessori materials in the Lower School and more abstract methods are used in the Upper School.

Writing and reading are an integral part of the school day. We encourage both creative writing and poetry writing, and each year our Form 5/6 children publish their poetry in a book. Our children also enter creative writing competitions, and several have won these and seen their work published.

Grammar, spelling and comprehension are taught separately throughout the school.

Recent English language teaching-related events have included:

• poet Neal Zetter visits annually running poetry workshops.
• annually Form Five and Six classes visit The Guardian to produce a newspaper front page.
• annual Roald Dahl day, when the children bring in their favourite Roald Dahl book and dress up as one of the characters.
• children in years Form Five and Six classes recounting tales from their camping trip.
• a ‘Selfie Wall’ where our children write a biography to go underneath their picture.
• a Shakespeare workshop in school run by the Shakespeare Tree Company.
• Charles Dickens, Julia Donaldson, Eric Carle and many more authors dress-up days.
• annual Readathon.
• participation in many external short story and poetry writing competitions.
• publishing annual poetry book “Peace Poetry” 2016.

The Gower School also organises annual events such as World Book Day, Poetry Recitation Week, Public Speech Writing/Making and a special ‘Meet the Author’ week to maintain the children’s interest and involvement in English language.