English
English work during the Lower School years at DCPS follows the guidelines offered by the National Curriculum Key Stage 2.
These guidelines consist of three main areas:
1. Speaking and Listening
2. Reading
3. Writing
Speaking and Listening
By means of class discussions, poetry lessons, drama lessons and productions, reading aloud and class assemblies, boys are encouraged to participate orally. Our aim is to develop listening skills and appropriate coherent responses to both instructions and questions. An increasing ability to express well-reasoned opinions is also fostered.
Reading
We offer a wide range of both fiction and non-fiction books and resources. With the combined support of both home and school, boys are encouraged to read aloud daily and thus develop a love of literature. We aim to foster an increasing ability to use reference material for both research and pleasure.
Writing
The Lower School continues to develop and enhance early writing skills of sentence construction, story writing and recording of information. By the time they move on to the Upper School it is hoped that boys will be able to write a well-constructed story, using paragraphs and a wide range of vocabulary and be moving towards checking their work for accuracy. Appropriate forms of writing for different purposes are explored and encouraged. All the boys have a graded spelling folder. Handwriting is taught with the help of the Nelson Handwriting Scheme.