English and Phonics

English underpins the entire curriculum at Beck and encompasses many important skills. At Beck, we want our English teaching to allow pupils to communicate confidently through both the spoken and written word and read with confidence and fluency showing a good understanding.

Throughout their school journey, pupils will learn how to read and write words through phonics lessons with this knowledge being built upon in key stage 2. Pupils will learn to produce a range of high-quality pieces of writing that meet end of key stage expectations by the time they leave year 6. 

Writing

Our writing curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all children. We follow the award-winning Ready Steady Write from Literacy Counts to develop confident, independent and successful writers with high aspirations. Our writing curriculum is research-informed and impact-proven, carefully designed to support all children to master the foundational skills and write for a clear audience and purpose. Through the use of high-quality, vocabulary-rich texts, we provide exciting and meaningful reasons to write. Children are immersed in literature, using beautiful high quality picture books. They are taught to craft their writing with precision, using a range of pedagogical approaches, including sentence accuracy, modelled writing and shared writing, as well as regular opportunities for editing. In EYFS and Key Stage 1 dictation is a key part of our early writing approach.

We value spoken language as a foundation for writing. Through structured talk, drama and vocabulary exploration, children learn how to organise and express their ideas clearly before writing them down. Our aim is for every child – regardless of need – to write fluently and take pride in their work. We want our pupils to leave primary school as enthusiastic writers, ready for the next stage of their education.

From Year 2 to Year 6 we teach spelling through the Read Write Spell scheme, building on from the structured RWI Phonics programme.

Reading

Reading is a key life skill and is a school wide priority. Pupils are taught how to read from EYFS until the end of year 6. Our pupils are taught to read with fluency and expression and how to understand a text they have read. As pupils move through school, they develop excellent inference and comprehension skills allowing them to engage deeply with a range of books. Our pupils are taught how to develop empathy for characters in texts and beyond supporting their emotional wellbeing and their understanding of emotional vocabulary. In addition, we want our pupils to leave us with a love of reading. All pupils have access to a wide range of engaging texts, the school library and classroom reading areas and have time to read for pleasure making their own book choices.

We want to support our pupils in their understanding of Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary so that they become competent in the use of a range of language and vocabulary. This is through reading, speaking and listening and writing lessons and underpins work in the wider curriculum. Pupils are taught how to communicate in clear sentences from EYFS until they leave us at the end of year 6. Speaking and listening skills are taught across the curriculum with many opportunities for discussion, performances, balanced arguments and presentations.

Our commitment to teaching high-quality and engaging English lessons will ensure that our pupils gain the knowledge and skills that they need to be successful in achieving the objectives outlined in the National Curriculum.