At Beechen Cliff we value all that it means to be a boy. With years of experience, teachers at Beechen Cliff encourage boys to grow and mature at their own pace, using teaching strategies that address learning styles specific to boys. They understand the different and complex worlds of the Year 7 boy and the young man preparing for university or employment.
Understanding and celebrating boyhood
In an age when boys and girls are under pressure to grow up too quickly, an all-boy environment allows the boys to stay as boys for longer. Teachers acknowledge the full range of boys’ emotions and vulnerabilities, broadening their spheres. Without the social pressures of a mixed environment, boys in an all-boy school can explore the full range of their personalities and potential. Avoiding stereotypes, boys discover they have many roles to play as a scholar, athlete, artist, musician, and friend.
How boys learn
Beechen Cliff recognises that boys often enjoy physical activity, are competitive and enjoy challenges. Lessons are separated by break times and lunchtimes where boys are encouraged to get fresh air and be active. In addition many take the opportunity to play card games, chess or read in Library. Others attend lunchtime clubs such as film club or music rehearsals. Boys enjoy the food available at school and our refectory provides a fantastic variety of hot meals and snacks, which can be purchased at both break times and lunch times.
We know boys often prefer to work cooperatively and understand the rhythm of a boys’ classroom. Lessons contain a mixture of lively discussion and opportunities to develop oracy skills in addition to periods of focused written work.
Teachers at Beechen Cliff enjoy our boys’ irreverent humour and draw energy from their natural enthusiasm. Our passion to teach boys requires a commitment to build relationships, expect the highest standards, and lead a classroom that engages each boy in the way he learns best.
Our library is crammed with fiction to cater for boys of all reading interests and abilities to develop their engagement with the written word and a love of reading.
From boy to young man
A zest for knowledge and an enquiring mind are important and we expect all boys to achieve high academic standards, but our view of education is embedded in celebrating all aspects of success – the creative and the physical as much as the intellectual. We support each boy in developing balance within his life, giving access to such a significant range of opportunities that all can find activities which will develop these attributes. Our boys pride themselves on their participation and achievements. Beechen Cliff boys understand the importance of resilience – one who is confident, optimistic and happy.
Our boys are nurtured to become increasingly self-confident without arrogance and to recognise the role that their increasing leadership potential can have on others. This is based around both understanding and embracing the school Core Values: aspiration, compassion, independence and respect. From an early point boys are given the chance to lead and to learn the value of themselves. At Beechen Cliff we have a key role to play in fostering “emotionally literate boys,” who respond to others with empathy and compassion.