English
Reading
At Beecholme, our aim is to develop confident and passionate readers. The building blocks for success in Reading begin with daily, high quality Phonics teaching in EYFS, which is delivered through our Little Wandle programme. As our pupils move through the school, they will have access to a fluency programme before being able to free read books of their choice. Children are supported to develop their skills of prosody and expression through individual and group reading sessions.
We use a whole-class approach for the teaching of Reading. This allows us to develop specific reading skills through challenging texts, giving children the chance to delve deeply into vocabulary and participate in discussion and debate to build their comprehension skills.
It is vital to us that children develop a love for reading which we encourage through weekly reading for pleasure sessions, visits to the school library, book sales and other special reading events.
Our teachers share books with their class daily. Each year group reads a range of up-to-date recommended books which include new releases, chosen classics, books from well-known authors, picture books, poetry and non -fiction texts.
Speaking and Listening
We believe that by fostering pupils' spoken communication abilities, we empower them to engage confidently and meaningfully in their learning, school life, and beyond. Our aim is for children to learn to communicate their thoughts, ideas and opinions clearly and succinctly, as well as to listen to and reflect on the ideas of others. We support pupils in developing their confidence and building up their vocabulary across the curriculum. From an early age, the children are encouraged to participate in a range of activities such as drama and role-play. Older pupils develop their skills in presentation, discussion and debate.
Oracy
We believe that by fostering pupils' spoken communication abilities, we empower them to engage confidently and meaningfully in their learning, school life, and beyond. Our oracy curriculum is designed to equip pupils with a broad range of speaking and listening skills, emphasising physical, linguistic, cognitive, social, and emotional strands of oracy. We aim to teach pupils how to talk and through talk, promoting effective communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. Within the curriculum, we teaching to learn to talk, pupils develop the technical skills of oracy, including articulation, voice control, vocabulary use, and respectful listening. Teachers provide structured activities, from presentations to debates, where pupils actively practice and refine these skills. Children also learn about talk and build their knowledge and understanding of language and communication in its many contexts.
Writing
Quality texts, films, artefacts and real purposes for writing feature at the heart of our writing curriculum. Texts are chosen for their ability to inspire writing, follow the interests of the children or to complement the wider curriculum.
We aim to develop pupils’ competence in the accuracy of grammar, punctuation and spelling and the structure of text composition. Children are taught the skills of planning for an extended piece of writing, organising their work coherently and the processes of evaluation and editing.
English is celebrated with different whole-school events throughout the year such as our termly ‘Take One Book’ week, Celebration of Poetry and cultural literature events.