Beech Grove Primary School
Summer Term 2026
Head Teacher’s Message
Happy New Year everyone and welcome to Spring term 2026. The time has flown since children started their new classes in September! This Spring term will fly even faster no doubt as the evenings become lighter and the daffodils start to poke through putting a smile on everyone’s face.
As Head teacher of your school, I continue to be so proud of all of the children and the way they have started back since returning from the Christmas break. Their resilience and adaptability remain outstanding.
This was picked up on and noticed in abundance during the schools Ofsted Inspection on the 22nd and 23rd of October. The HMI Ofsted Inspector was blown away of what he described to us as ‘school is an oasis of calm’ for all children at Beech Grove.
“Pupils at Beech Grove are proud of their school, welcoming visitors with exemplary manners and conduct. They understand the school’s ‘next-door neighbour’ principles and the school’s five golden rules well. Pupils consistently show high levels of respect to adults and to one another. They are happy and safe. Highly trained staff put pupils’ needs first in all they do. Pupils thrive in the warm and nurturing environment that the school fosters.” Ofsted 2024/25. What a fantastic first paragraph of the Ofsted Report to read. I’m sure you’ll all agree.
This term we hope to pick up where we left off before Christmas with our children achieving good progress within their core subject areas, due to the tremendous hard-working attitude of themselves and the dedicated staff team here at school.
“Leaders have created a culture of high expectations for pupils’ achievement. Pupils meet these expectations… Behaviour across school is of a high standard. Well-trained staff create a purposeful learning atmosphere. Pupils’ learning is not disrupted by others. ”Ofsted 2024/25.
Children’s classroom and corridor manners remain amazing which continues to maintain a lovely, positive and caring atmosphere around school. The schools “Next Door Neighbour Qualities” of Respect, Tolerance and Kindness are certainly being upheld. The children take great pride in this in and around school and it is wonderful to see. Please keep having a bit of fun at home and test the children regularly on what it takes in school (and the community) to be a good “Next Door Neighbour”!
This term we will also be hoping for some lovely spring sunshine so that children can make full use of our Secret Garden in lesson time and maybe plant some wonderful spring flowers for us all to enjoy (even the ducks!!!). I always think that spring flowers with their vibrant colours and freshness cheer everyone up from the gloom of the long, dark and wet winter months. They are a sign that lighter nights and warmer weather is on its way! (fingers crossed)
Our teachers have lots of interesting activities planned for this term and hope that you will enjoy hearing what children have been working on at consultation meetings/phone conversations, and will support them with their homework and reading outside of school.
Please, please, please x10000 keep encouraging your child to read at home. Reading is the key to everything! The children are showing such a passion and love of reading in school, we hope you will continue this with them at home.
We also hope that every effort is made by you for every child to attend school regularly. It is so important for your child’s development. We can’t continue to stress this enough. (95% and above is GOOD attendance). As a school we need to be better on the first and last day of terms. Far too many children have these particular days off.
In addition to this being ON TIME every day for school is absolutely vital so that your child does not miss any of their learning. It can be really upsetting and frustrating for children if they come into a lesson that is part way through and they’ve missed vital teacher input and modelling. It can cause them great distress and being left with a feeling of not understanding what is expected of them.
Its really pleasing to see that our ‘lates’ are reducing and that you are all working really hard to support school on this issue. Well done everyone. Keep up the great efforts. Let’s have all the children in on time every day!
Here’s to a really positive Spring term!
John Dixon
English
Reading:
We will continue to start the day with Read, Write Inc every morning. It is vitally important that your child is in ON TIME for this crucial part of their school day. The children are regularly tested and put into groups to work at their own level. The progress the children have made since September is AMAZING! Most children can read CVC words with special friends in and some are reading captions and sentences independently. Some of our children will be learning new Set 2 sounds! Please continue to listen to your child read at home, this is such a lovely opportunity for you to see how much they have progressed in their reading. We are so proud of them. Children working below the expected level receive daily targeted support with Mrs Robinson.
Writing:
Children are also supported with writing during the Read, Write Inc lesson. Most children can now write simple CVC words and are working on writing simple captions and sentences. We encourage children to write using their Fred Fingers, counting the sounds on their fingers and pinching them to write the word. They are all doing brilliantly with this. Children are also encouraged to write independently in busy time and the quality of writing they are doing is fantastic! We are so proud of them and we know they will keep working hard in Summer term.
Maths
We will continue with our Mastering Number work, having a sound understanding of numbers to 10 including how numbers are composed, double facts and knowing if a number is odd or even. Some children are confident with numbers to 20 and beyond, this is a target for all children for the end of the term. Please support your child by counting at home with a focus on the teen numbers and the pattern of our number system. We will continue practising finding 1 more and 1 less than a given number to 20 for any children not secure yet.
We talk about the days of the week each day. Please support your child at home with learning the days of the week. Ask if they know what day is it today? Which day was yesterday? What day will it be tomorrow? Which day do you do PE?
Topic
Our topic for Summer 1 is ‘Are We There Yet?’– In this topic, we will find out about various forms of transport including how transport has changed over time. We will talk about different places people visit and will use maps to show places we would like to go. We will look at the different modes of transport used in other countries around the world. We will also explore how things move including and how we can make things move faster or slower.
Our topic for Summer 2 is ‘Why Do Ladybirds have spots?’ – We will be learning about different minibeasts and their habitats. In our classrooms, we will observe the amazing life cycle of a butterfly. We will also explore why ladybirds have spots, why spiders spin webs and why minibeasts hide. We will look closely at the changing of the seasons, how is summer different to Spring? Why do we only see butterflies in the summer? This topic is fantastic opportunity for children to appreciate the natural world and all it has to offer us.
Safeguarding (What we are teaching children to help them keep safe)
As part of our Summer 2 topic, we will learn about the importance of keeping safe on roads and pavements. We will discuss road safety including how to be a safe pedestrian and the use of high visibility clothing. Due to the increasing temperatures, we will be talking about sun safety. Please apply suncream to your child on a morning and send a water bottle in to school. We have sun hats in school that the children can wear but please feel free to send one in, if you would like to.
Jigsaw- We will continue our regular Jigsaw lessons with Jigsaw Jenie. These lessons will provide opportunities for your child to develop the life skills needed to reach their potential as an individual and to stay safe.
Dates for your Diary
Summer Term: Monday 20th April 2026 to Friday 21st July 2026
Half Term: Monday 25th May 2026 to Friday 29th May 2026
May Day: Monday 4th May 2026