Our Strategy
At Budmouth Academy we are acutely aware of the need for students to possess effective literacy and oracy skills, and thus have a relentless focus on improving these skills so that every student is supported to achieve the highest possible outcomes, regardless of their socio-economic background.
Our Aims
- To expose students to a wide range of challenging texts to increase cultural capital and support curriculum learning.
- To improve students’ literacy skills – speaking, listening, reading and writing and expand their vocabulary repertoire.
- To ensure students can access the curriculum in all subject areas and improve life chances.
- To foster engagement with reading and promote reading for pleasure.
- To develop students’ self-confidence and metacognitive abilities through the physical, cognitive, linguistic, and social and emotional aspects of oracy.
- For all students to leave the academy as literate, confident communicators ready for their next steps.
- All subject teachers have a crucial role to play in developing students’ academic and formal language, whether through modelling in conversations with each other, facilitating class discussions or through explicit teaching of tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary in lessons.
Curriculum and Teaching & Learning
Through our carefully sequenced curriculum overviews, tutors and subjects have a half termly focus on tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary that is planned and interleaved through lesson delivery by making use of the ‘Aspirations Oracy Framework’ and our ‘Literacy Super 7’ techniques.
Disciplinary literacy is defined as ‘an approach to improving literacy across the curriculum that emphasises the importance of subject-specific support’ (EEF) and therefore all teachers should be supported to understand how to teach students to read, write and communicate effectively in their subjects.
The academy literacy lead works with middle leaders to ensure that disciplinary literacy is considered and implemented within each curriculum area. In this way, each subject’s unique literacy skills are highlighted and taught to students through a variety of techniques in lessons and are carefully mapped and regularly reviewed in subject curriculum overviews.
Drop Everything and Read (DEAR)
Students in Years 7–10 follow a weekly programme that includes four 30-minute DEAR sessions. Each session follows a clear structure to maximise learning time and maintain consistency. Across the week, students read a novel or play using our ‘Literacy Super 7’ techniques, with teachers guiding regular opportunities for reflection, discussion, and deeper exploration of key themes and topics. Students read at least 3 full texts over the course of the year.
Our DEAR books are a carefully balanced mix of age appropriate, award-winning and research-backed choices that reflect the experiences of today’s society. The collection includes powerful stories of resilience, friendship, and identity, alongside gripping adventures of survival, courage, and discovery. Themes of injustice, community, and empathy run through many of the titles, encouraging students to think critically about the diverse world around them. Expertly guided by staff, students explore these contemporary issues while building a lasting love of reading.
Please access to our DEAR reading list* below.
Testing & Intervention
All Key Stage 3 students are tested at the start of each year. This offers a personalised experience for each student which is accessible for all and mapped against national benchmarks. It helps to quickly identify problems that will hold back a student’s progress, with customised practical classroom solutions to put in place for each student. The regular testing allows us to assess the impact of our literacy strategies and any interventions, and review or adapt them accordingly.
Students identified as significantly below age-related expectations will receive specific intervention and support, both within and outside of lessons. Intervention programmes include:
- Lexia PowerUp: Adaptive online literacy programme completed through school sessions and homework. Approximately 90 minutes weekly over 10-12 weeks during DEAR. Provides personalised pathways using diagnostic assessment.
- Little Wandle Code: Delivered daily for 20–30 minutes during DEAR using the Little Wandle programme, focusing on phonics, blending, spelling and reading fluency. Progress is reviewed regularly, with students continuing until they can decode accurately and access the wider curriculum confidently.
- Specialist Teacher Programme (STP): Targeted support through the LA’s Specialist Teacher Service for students with significant literacy needs. Following a YARC assessment, students receive a bespoke programme delivered in 2x 1-hour sessions each week to improve literacy and access to the curriculum.
- Peer-Assisted Reading Strategy (PAR): Peer-assisted reading delivered daily during DEAR is led by the Student Leadership Team, where trained student mentors support peers through structured partner reading to improve fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and reading confidence.
*DEAR Reading List
Additional books for each year group:
- Small Town Hero by Patrick Neate follows Mickey Donnelly, a teenager in a small English town navigating identity, race and belonging after his father’s death. The novel explores themes of masculinity, family and self-discovery.
- The Crossover by Kwame Alexander. It’s a young-adult verse novel that tells the story of twin brothers and their lives on and off the basketball court.
- Further Adventures of a Young Naturalist by David Attenborough is a memoir recounting his early expeditions during the 1950s as he travelled the world filming wildlife. The book describes encounters with rare animals, remote communities and the challenges of early nature broadcasting, highlighting his developing passion for conservation and storytelling.
- Fighting Reuben Wolfe by Markus Zusak follows teenage brothers Cameron and Reuben Wolfe as they take part in illegal boxing matches to earn money for their struggling family. Narrated by Cameron, the novel explores themes of loyalty, identity, masculinity and brotherhood, capturing the emotional tensions and moral challenges the boys face as they try to define who they are.
- Pig-Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman tells the story of Cameron, a teenage boy with a life-threatening heart condition who is offered a pioneering heart transplant using a genetically modified pig’s heart. The novel explores themes of medical ethics, identity, friendship and what it means to live a full life.
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas follows sixteen-year-old Starr Carter, who witnesses the fatal police shooting of her unarmed friend. As she navigates life between her predominantly Black neighbourhood and her largely white private school, Starr finds her voice and confronts issues of racism, injustice and identity. The novel explores themes of activism, community and standing up for what is right.
- Step By Step by Simon Reeve is the inspiring Top 10 bestselling memoir from TV traveller Simon Reeve, sharing both the challenges of his early life and his amazing adventures in the most remote and extreme corners of the planet.
- An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield is a captivating memoir completed after three spaceflights; Hadfield reveals extraordinary stories from his life as an astronaut, and shows how to make the impossible a reality.
- The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis details life in Afghanistan as the main character, Parvana, experiences her father being arrested and taken away by Taliban soldiers.
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is the classic adventure story, brimming with suspense and swashbuckling action.
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; a dystopian tale, it deals with harsh truths about the state of humanity.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone who knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth.
- 1984 by George Orwell is the classic dystopian masterpiece. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Winston Smith finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening, and awakens to new possibilities.
- His Royal Whiskers by Sam Gayton features Prince Alexander, the only heir to the mighty Petrossian Empire, yet we realise that something very strange has happened to him…somehow, he has been miraculously transformed into a kitten and we’ll get to find out why.
- A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness is the bestselling novel about love, loss and hope; it was adapted for the big screen in 2016.
- This Story is a Lie by Benjamin Dean is a gripping teen thriller. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…
- Boy, Missing by Sophie McKenzie is an adrenaline-fuelled race against time as a camping trip goes wrong when a search is needed for a missing child.
- Cloudburst and Thunderbolt (two in a series) by Wilbur Smith are Jack Courtney adventures set in Africa that include mystery, mayhem and high-adrenaline action.
- Tough Women Adventure Stories by Jenny Tough is a non-fiction compilation featuring tales of grit, determination and the spirit of adventure.