It is our mission to inspire and empower your child to be the best reader, best writer and best speaker they can be.
We will create an all-through learning environment which encourages your child to become linguistically knowledgeable, reading confident, culturally aware and vocabulary rich. We will foster their development as literary critics, creative writers and articulate orators through an engaging and diverse all-through curriculum which will prepare them for the present - and will enrich them with skills for the future. Equipping your child with strong literacy dexterities will give them the key to the world of further education and, beyond that, a fulfilling and successful career. As they study, they will do so in an atmosphere where mistakes are part of the learning process; where there is an emphasis on both self-reflection and self-development, underpinning our nurturing ‘positive mindset’ outlook on academic progression.
Primary Phase
In Key Stages 1 and 2, your child will journey through a high-quality English curriculum which understands and prioritises the key literacy skills required for communication fluency, opening up access to learning opportunities in other curriculum areas. These include an ability to read widely across a range of genres; the acquisition of a wide vocabulary; an awareness of grammar and a knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language. Furthermore, your child will obtain the capability to write coherently and they will be encouraged to adapt their language and style to suit a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
To support this, carefully-sequenced programmes of study will focus on the progression of these key skills, using interesting and relevant subject material to stimulate their engagement. Early reading is taught using Little Wandle - an accredited systematic synthetic phonics scheme - where we strive that children ‘keep up’ rather than ‘catch up’. Phonics assessment continues until our passionate, literacy-focused staff are confident that our children have a knowledge of phonics. Entering the latter stages of their primary education, they will be immersed into the Accelerated Reader Programme – a popular initiative which supports the growth of independent reading and comprehension skills, developing our academy’s all-though culture of reading.
Secondary Phase
With a heavy emphasis on reading and vocabulary, your child will embark on a Key Stage 3 and 4 curriculum which stewards and encourages an enthusiasm for fiction through the exploration of literary classics by writers such as Shakespeare, Orwell and Dickens, as well as contemporary works and those from other cultures, reflecting the changing and inclusive world around us. They will make links between the modern world and their own lives through the analysis of non-fiction texts and they will also compare and contrast varying genres of poetry, including themes of nature, war and relationships. Pupils will be inspired to write creatively by showcasing their imagination in narrative and descriptive formats. Moreover, our learners will be offered a number of opportunities to develop their oral skills and communication confidence in front of their peers through yearly individual and group speaking activities.
Each half-term comprises of a themed unit of work which builds to an end-of-term assessment that reflects GCSE exam scenarios and is comprehensively marked with feedback given for improvement. Students are tasked with personally tracking the development of their skills and we also place a heavy value on our ‘student voice’ platform – where your child is invited to offer their views on what they have learnt and become an important contributor to how our schemes of work evolve in the future. In addition, our curriculum is mirrored through our virtual learning provision, where all lessons are videoed and available for either recapping, further support or for absent students, using our Google Classroom platform. Weekly, pupils will also receive a list of key words to learn for an end-of-week quiz to support their focus on spelling and vocabulary.
To enable a culture of reading to flourish, students commence each English lesson with five minutes of ‘dedicated silent reading time’, continuing the use of the Accelerated Reader Programme from the primary phases, and they are expected to read independently for 20 minutes per evening. Homework is set every week, with a homework club at lunch time to support students where necessary. Our extra-curricular offer extends to a book club, a debating society and a high-aspirations literature group. As your child reaches their end of their academic journey, we use our strong links with local further education providers to explore English-related course options or to demonstrate how their developed literacy skills will be relevant in potential career pathways or to future employers.
We are proud to be entrusted with your child’s development towards being the best they can be.
English Curriculum