The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away by Ronald L. Smith

Fundamentally, we aim to deliver a creative English curriculum which our children thoroughly enjoy and engage with, helping them develop holistically. To develop confident writers, we offer opportunities for children to analyse fiction, non-fiction and poetry, plan their ideas, embed skills, draft and re-draft to publish a final piece. This allows children to fully engage in the book, which are linked thematically where possible to non-core subjects. Set in a downtrodden seaside town appropriately named Gloom, the tale follows a single mother and her son.

We take great pride in offering ‘hooks for books’ which are based around practical or artistic activities linking to the up-coming text. In his latest work, Smith ( The Owls Have Come To Take Us Away, 2019, etc.) weaves together an eerie adventure narrative as nail-biting and mysterious as Roald Dahl’s The Witches. For Hoodoo, Smith won the American Library Associations Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent. With high prominence, creativity is encouraged throughout their learning process through inspiring pupil voice and independent thinkers, centring learning on Speaking and Listening. He is the author of Hoodoo (2015), The Mesmerist (2017), Black Panther: The Young Prince (2018), The owls have come to take us away (2019), and Gloom Town (2020). Event Date AugNotes - He is the author of 'Hoodoo,' 'The Mesmerist' and 'Black Panther: The Young Prince. We aim to provide our children with a vast collection of skills and knowledge that they can implement whilst at Villiers and carry with them into the future. Smith discussed 'The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away' at the 2019 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Vocabulary exposure through our reading is a focus and children are submersed into an extensive selection of books to support this. At Villiers Primary School we know that being fluent in the English language is an open door to the whole curriculum and many other opportunities.

The Owls Have Come to Take Us Away by Ronald L. Smith