The English curriculum is ambitious, challenging and has been designed to develop our students into confident, creative and critical thinkers – skills that are fundamental in ensuring they become successful, life-long learners. We don’t want to just prepare our students for their GCSEs, but for the world of work too, which we do by developing our students’ core literacy, reading and writing skills throughout their time with us. In addition, we hope to develop an appreciation and love of reading within our students; they are given regular opportunities to analyse a range of texts, including non-fiction, poetry, Shakespeare and whole novels, starting right at the start of KS3.
We also ensure our students have many opportunities to write for different audiences and purposes, ensuring they recognise the importance of using punctuation and grammar accurately and engaging their reader through effective vocabulary. Speaking and listening in a range of contexts and for different purposes are also vital skills that we develop so that our students become effective speakers and confident communicators.
