English at Beaminster St Mary’s

At Beaminster St Mary’s Academy, English is at the cornerstone of our entire curriculum.  We endeavour to ensure that all learners are primary literate and achieve the highest standard in reading, writing and speaking and listening.

Reading is the gateway to all future learning; therefore, we place an emphasis on high quality phonics teaching, leading to fluency and excellent comprehension skills.  Through using high-quality texts, selected from our rich literary heritage, we aim to create a vocabulary rich environment so that pupils become life-long readers, creative writers and purposeful speakers and listeners.

At Beaminster St Mary’s our connected curriculum gives pupils the opportunities to apply their writing in a meaningful way in areas that interest them.  All Topics link to reading and writing, ensuring that pupils are thoroughly immersed in the subject.  On their journey through school, children become proficient at writing to entertain, inform, persuade and review, publishing their work for a real audience.   High expectations of grammar, punctuation and spelling are expected therefore we dedicate time in the curriculum to teaching these essential skills.

 All of our subjects include the same curriculum drivers, these are:

Curiosity

• We aspire for pupils to embrace challenge with a growth mindset and show curiosity, independence and resilience in all that they do.

Admiration

• We aspire for pupils to become wise, respectful learners.

Communication

• We aspire for pupils to become emotionally mature with a depth of language that enables them to share ideas effectively.

Worldly

• We aspire for pupils to become emotionally literate, tolerant, and appreciative of an ever-changing global environment.