English

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free”  Frederick Douglass 

Curriculum Principles

At the heart of our curriculum is the necessity for all students to become judicious readers. We are deluged with a wealth of written information on a daily basis from more sources than ever before, with less quality control than ever before and we need our young people to be able to distinguish between truth and manipulative content presented as fact; ‘fake news.’ Through engaging with non –fiction, students can begin to reflect on local, national and global issues developing all important viewpoints that will enable them to use their voices in everyday life with courage and conviction.  

We are passionate about encouraging a love of reading in a world that has become so full of noise. Reading can offer quiet reflection and the opportunity for students to explore human behaviours and motivation; to travel to far flung places geographically and across time. We want them to learn about where their language comes from, embrace their literary heritage and explore the unheard voices in society. Students will glean that human behaviours never really evolve and that Shakespeare faced the same challenges of crafting his characters as contemporary writers today and with this they will reflect upon assertions and abuse of power, consequences of decisions made and issues of morality.  

We also must not lose sight of the importance of students acquiring oracy skills and understanding the language choices that they make in everyday life and how they must learn to adapt their word choice according to context. This will empower students to thrive in all areas of life and in particular with further education and work opportunities.  

Curriculum Features 

English has long been seen as a predominantly skills-based subject, we need to redress the balance so that powerful knowledge forms the foundations of student learning.  GCSE English Language and Literature requires students to demonstrate greater core knowledge; we want students to move away from the ‘you can’t revise for English’ myth that can inhibit the preparation for exams to recognising the value of knowledge. To reflect the explicit shift to core knowledge we need our assessments to also expand beyond purely assessing reading and writing skills to the recalling of key information.   

The next challenge we face in English is that the choice of books to build into our curriculum is endless particularly at KS3. With this in mind we have created a curriculum that is thematically linked from module to module with students reading widely, reflecting upon a range of genre conventions, literary heritage and viewpoints. 

We also wish to remove the notion that only certain students can study certain books, we were all struck by this powerful quotation that changed how we selected texts for the new curriculum; ‘If we deny students the opportunity to read challenging literature, we become complicit in a kind of elitism that deems only a certain calibre of child worthy of reading a certain quality text. This can, unwittingly, perpetuate the social and cultural divides in our country’ (Making every English lesson count by Andy Tharlby) 

We  promote independent reading through the Accelerated Reading programme for Year 7 and Year 8 in addition to class texts. There will be a greater use of the resource centre and support from the wider school community; school librarian, Sixth Form, Accelerated Reader champions and form tutors to reinforce the drive to promote and value literacy across the wider school. 

Starting with Year 7, students will explore the theme of identity to help them not only find their own voice in a new school setting, but to also enable them to explore a range of narrative voices constructed for a variety of purposes. They will consider how their voices and the words that they choose have a rich cultural heritage and the impact that this has on their identity. Identity will also be explored through fictional characters where students will explore how confused identities can be used for comedy and drama. 

In Year 8, our students will explore the theme of ‘justice and freedom’ and will use their knowledge of the construction of identities to decide if justice has been served and if humans can ever be truly free by investigating a diverse range of powerful texts. Exploring justice and freedom in this manner will expose our students to social and moral issues from a range of cultures, traditions and historical periods and will therefore give them a greater understanding of the world around them.  

The theme of ‘big voices’ will be covered in Year 9 as this will not only draw together the powerful knowledge gained by the thematic studies in Year 7 and Year 8 but it will also challenge our students to explore the thoughts and feelings of the marginalised and the oppressed. By pushing students to consider life from an alternative perspective, our students will develop a greater sense of empathy for their fellow man. 