‘In English, we collaborate to connect with those around us through empathy, expression and curiosity. Our moral compass is shaped through the words we read, the stories we share and the desire to question the world we live in. In our ever-changing world, we will develop the skills we need to appreciate our language and to navigate our chosen paths in life.’

Our English curriculum is centred around binary themes for each year group with a primary focus on fostering a love of reading for all. These themes have been selected as the central concepts of English Literature in addition to aligning with Catholic Social Teaching principles: Heroes and Villains, Conflict and Peace, Justice and Injustice, Power and Greed and Morality and Corruption. It is through these themes that students will explore their place within our society as reflected through the texts studied and scenarios experienced within each year group curriculum. 

At Key Stage 3, we blend our reading and writing units thematically, building on our feeder schools’ approaches at Key Stage 2. Every year, a group at Key Stage 3 will have a deliberately sequenced journey of reading, writing and oracy units allowing students to retrieve and embed key knowledge and skills into their long-term memory in accordance with the National Curriculum. A core focus for the English Department has been to improve the prevalence of non-fiction reading at Key Stage 3 to eradicate the typical fiction bias. Our whole college strategy designed to combat this discrepancy is our Reading Template, which has always been implemented and sequenced in a specific way in accordance with the latest disciplinary reading and Literacy research. Knowledge gained is tested formatively through knowledge retrieval, extended writing opportunities and knowledge checks, in addition to two summative biannual CAs. Across all key stages, our curriculum design is complemented by our formative and summative assessment design, ensuring student knowledge is assessed with rigour at deliberate moments to test long term acquisition of knowledge and skill. The sequencing of knowledge allows students to incrementally build on their prior learning in every year group, cementing new knowledge allowing students to develop the ability to transfer knowledge and use it flexibly across our English concepts.

At Key Stage 4, students encounter Literature and Language in an alternating half-termly fashion, allowing students time to ‘forget’ knowledge of AQA specification areas before reteaching, allowing knowledge to be cemented into long term memory. 

Likewise, in ALevel Literature, pupils study Aspects of Tragedy and Elements of Crime Writing in a linear style with the sequencing of literary methods, generic conventions, contexts and critical theory embedded in a spiralling nature as AQA specification B texts are taught. 

In Alevel Language, students also study Textual Variations and Representations and Language Diversity in a linear style with the sequencing of linguistic methods, forms, modes and critical theory embedded in a spiralling nature as the AQA specification topics are taught. 

Throughout all key stages, our retrieval do now activities and explicit vocabulary teaching form the bedrock to our curriculum and are purposefully mapped allowing students to know and remember more each year. We also afford students opportunities beyond that dictated in the National Curriculum allowing students to broaden their knowledge of English-related careers and pathways, inspiring their future choices. To name a few, theatre trips, poet and author visits and wider reading opportunities help to inspire our young voices and equip them with the skills to express themselves purposefully.