Our core texts this term are: 

Spring Term

Carrie's War

 'I did a dreadful thing, the worst thing of my life, when I was twelve and a half years old, and nothing can change it'

It is wartime and Carrie and her little brother Nick have been evacuated from their London home to the Welsh hills. In an unfamiliar place, among strangers, the children feel alone and find little comfort with the family they are billeted with: Mr Evans, a bullying shopkeeper and Auntie Lou, his kind but timid sister.

When Carrie and Nick visit Albert, another evacuee, they are welcomed into Hepzibah Green's warm kitchen. Hepzibah is rumoured to be a witch, but her cooking is delicious, her stories are enthralling and the children cannot keep away. With Albert, Hepzibah and Mister Johnny, they begin to settle into their new surroundings. But before long, their loyalties are tested: will they be persuaded to betray their new friends?
 

Autumn Term

Reading: Fly Me Home by Polly Ho-Yen

Children begin by deriving meaning from context and exploring figurative language before doing some explicit retrieval and then using it to further infer and predict.

Writing: The Arrival - a wordless book by Shaun Tan

What drives so many to leave everything behind and journey alone to a mysterious country, a place without family or friends, where everything is nameless and the future is unknown. This silent graphic novel is the story of every migrant, every refugee, every displaced person, and a tribute to all those who have made the journey.

Children explore characters, emotions, different points of view and the challenges faced by the main character and some of the other characters who have made their way to a new land. Children will write diary of the little girl left behind and there are opportunities to write short scripts for scenes and narrative passages to describe what is happening at certain points in the book.