English
Our aim is to engage students in a vibrant and exciting thematic curriculum. Our curriculum sits alongside other key subjects, helping students to make links across their learning and apply their understanding across a broad range of contexts. We have developed a curriculum which allows students the opportunity to develop the skills they will need to access our KS3 curriculum, whilst being flexible enough to allow them time to work on foundational literacy skills.
We aim to develop students’ reading skills using a range of vibrant and relevant texts. Each half terms, students will study: a text from another culture, a modern fiction text, a myth or traditional tale, a literary heritage text and a non-fiction text. Texts have been chosen for interest and engagement but also with the understanding that our students may have widely different contexts and needs. Activities are planned to build students’ fluency and comprehension and support them to lay the foundations for success at KS3 and beyond.
We aim to develop students writing skills through the explicit teaching of different forms. Students will have the opportunity to write for a wide range of audiences and purposes, developing their individual voices and engaging their imagination and creating opportunities for self-expression and creativity. We recgonise that reading is breathing in; children internalise the big ideas and creativity of others and writing is breathing out; children express their thoughts and ideas, formed and informed by their reading.
We aim to nurture the skills of life-long verbal communication through a range of speaking and listening activities, which build confidence and help our students to articulate themselves with clarity and expression
Students’ cultural capital and global awareness is built through the choice of texts and diverse writers we have selected. We aim to the teach British Values through our texts and the discussion of issues which arise from these choices.
