Year 7 English group

At High Flyers during Autumn 2 we have focused on developing writing skills.

What is good writing?

How do we encourage readers to be interested in our writing?

How do we make our writing descriptive and create imagery?

How do we use, metaphors, similes and personification?

How do we improve our writing to engage readers?

As a writer we need to develop ideas that are interesting, which hook the reader. Our writing needs to have fluency, so that the words flow and are expressive, inviting the reader and creating a voice in the readers mind. Writing needs to express the writer’s thoughts, personality and feelings. Added to this the writer needs to also use the correct conventions (grammar, spelling, punctuation) of writing, whilst creating  a piece that is logical, effective and easy to read.

Our year 7 English group has worked hard all term to accomplish excellent writing skills. As an end of term task they wrote a piece on what Christmas means to them. We are very proud of their writing and have attached it to share.

What does Christmas mean?

Ameline, 11
Christmas is the most joyful and magical time of the year. Where all the family come together and everyone is happy and filled with love, faith and hope.

Smells of mulled wine, cinnamon and gingerbread fill the air, as people line the busy streets eating Christmas food and doing last minute Christmas shopping.

Snuggling next to warm fires with cosy blankets and cups of delicious hot chocolate. Watching Christmas classics with my family. The gentle glow of flickering candles makes the room feel even more like Christmas and the sweet smelling scents fill my nose.

A Christmas tree in nearly every home, carefully decorated with shining baubles and beautiful lights. Underneath are lots of family gifts, each wrapped individually in festive paper, waiting for the day you get to see their face to light up with excitement at the gift picked especially for them.

Christmas is much more than a day. It is a season. Several weeks where we spend our time and efforts seeing our family and friends, time with people we love. Where people spend time giving and sharing with others. Christmas is like a huge soft blanket that covers everyone with excitement and cheer and fills them with festivity. Christmas is the best time of the year.

Charlotte, 11

Christmas is the most wonderful and sparkly time of the year, full of decorations, pantomimes/plays, gifts and food. It brings friends and families together to celebrate the birth of Jesus that happened over 2000 years ago.

Christmas brings back traditions like Christmas dinner, putting up a Christmas tree, writing Christmas cards, pantomimes and advent calendars. Children play around on the streets having snowball fights and making snow angels.

Gifts are neatly stacked under the tree, the lights are all turned on in towns, villages and cities decorating the skylines. Roaring open fires send warm air into rooms keeping you warm under a blanket and the snow falling onto the ground and kissing your cheeks with coldness are beautiful sights at Christmas.

The smells around you remind you Christmas is almost here, in every room there is a different smell from candles that the wax melt sending lovely smells around our homes.  The Christmas tree decorated with fairy lights baubles and tinsel embrace you with forest type smells, cinnamon wafting from the kitchen and the smell of food on the streets coming from the markets in town make your mouth water.

On the radio you hear carols and songs being played creating cheer. The tastes are mouth melting, gingerbread that has been made into houses and people. The turkey, stuffing, vegetables and gravy in Christmas dinner, chocolate log with cream and Christmas pudding are a few of my favourite tastes at Christmas.