Reading 

 Reading is something we all strongly believe is a vital foundation to a child’s learning. Around school we have created lots of lovely areas promoting books full of rich vocabulary to help enhance our children. Each class has a dedicated reading area, where staff have worked hard to make it engaging and exciting. We have also revamped our junior library to make it purposeful and enriching. We have also purchased lots of new books with the help of some lovely parents and friends of Richmond Hill. Here are a few pictures from across our school to show you what we’ve been up to

Communication skills are vital for both success and confidence in many areas of life and  we want our pupils to develop the ability to express themselves clearly and effectively. We want to facilitate a love of books, story, rhyme and song and encourage pupils to foster their developing skills and enthusiasm in an environment where this is skillfully modelled and opportunities across the curriculum are provided. We recognise that both listening and speaking are important when communicating and opportunities to practise and develop these skills are provided. We want our pupils to be able to offer their opinions and reason articulately whilst also being able to debate a topic or viewpoint and disagree respectfully.

Chatting with children 

Within our Early Years we use the 'Chatting with Children' programme to help develop the language and oracy skills of our children. It enables them to build vocabulary, understand conversations and form strong bonds with peers and adults. It involves asking open ended questions, responding to their interests and using every day moments to introduce new words and concepts in a fun and encouraging way.

Drawing Club

Drawing club is an Early Years educational approach, created by Greg Bottrill, that uses stories, picture books and animations to inspire children to draw and develop literacy, fine motor and language and oracy skills. It transforms the classroom into a magical world of imagination where children create their own characters and settings, enrich their vocabulary and learn to make connections between drawings and words to fuel early writing skills.

World Poetry Day 

We all learnt about the features of some different types of poetry for World Poetry Day, where we focussed on the different language features used by the authors. We then wrote our own version in our classes and then spent some time reading them aloud to each other, to promote and enhance our oracy skills.

Class Wordless Books

All classes have a wordless book on their reading spine to promote oracy skills. These units focus on thought provioking lessons and activities and promote lots of opportunity discussion-based activities.

World Book Day 

We celebrated World Book Day in 2025 with the theme 'Traditional Tales with a twist.' Throughout the day, each class took part in a range of reading-based activities linked to the theme. Our older children had the opportunity to share stories with our younger members of Richmond Hill and the whole school took part in a sponsored Readathon throughout the month of March! We also invited parents into school to spend some time in classes reading with children and taking part in the activities! 

World Nursery Rhyme Week 

Our Early Years Foundation Stage children enjoyed celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week, taking part in activities centred around a specific rhyme each day and learning the words to each rhyme. At Richmond Hill we value the importance of introducing nursery rhymes and understand that they can support the development of early language skills, such as encouraging active listening and introducing new vocabulary. 

World Nursery Rhyme Week

Our Early Years Foundation Stage children enjoyed celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week, taking part in activities centred around a specific rhyme each day and learning the words to each rhyme. At Richmond Hill we value the importance of introducing nursery rhymes and understand that they can support the development of early language skills, such as encouraging active listening and introducing new vocabulary. 

Summer Production

Every Summer our Key Stage 2 pupils perform a musical play for the school community. It involves learning play scripts, remembering lines, singing, performing and dancing. The children have to develop their oracy skills to perform with character and interest to a live audience.

Young Voices

We had an amazing time at Young Voices in Manchester participating in the largest children's choir. The children practised their songs for months before the final performance, it was a fantastic experience for the children and their behaviour was impeccable!

 

Roald Dahl Day

Each year as a school we celebrate Roald Dahl Day. We learn about Roald Dahl himself and look at some of his wonderful stories in depth. This year we have carried out activities with an oracy focus ranging from children creating their own chocolate bars and making them talk to becoming Willy Wonka and trying to persuade others to buy their new chocolate bar.