English Curriculum Intent Our curriculum is designed to enable students to become confident, literate readers and critical, accurate writers. This is our focus as we want all students to leave school with greater levels of social, emotional and economic wellbeing. Each unit of work deals with a range of social and cultural factors which form a core part of student discussion, broadening their understanding of the world and their place within it. By allowing students to become critical and accurate writers, we can send them out into the world as effective communicators both in the work place and in their personal lives. This in turn allows students to explore how to express themselves creatively in written and spoken form.


Implementation
The English faculty follow a five year spiral curriculum providing students with a breadth and depth of English study which is rooted in literary heritage. Each academic year in Key Stage 3, students study a 19th Century novel, a play (including two Shakespeare plays over the Key Stage) and a modern text or poetry anthology. This allows students to gain confidence in English literature whilst practicing a range of language skills which increase in difficulty and complexity over the course of their study. Underpinning this, is a wide range of reading for pleasure activities both in and outside the classroom, to engender a love of reading and expose students to a diverse range of texts. Alongside reading, students’ writing is developed using a mastery approach to model accuracy and inspire creativity in all forms of writing – writing lessons take the form of grammatical activities and longer writing tasks to develop students ability to write at length. At KS4, students follow the AQA course in English Language and English Literature which builds explicitly on the knowledge and skills taught at KS3.
 

Impact

How we plan to achieve it:

  • To inspire successful learners who are independent and enjoy reading so that they making outstanding progress and achieving their potential.
  • To expose them to a rich diet of Literary heritage texts and modern readers so that cultural capital increases over time.
  • To explore the contexts of classic prose, poetry and plays so that knowledge is mastered across key stages.
  • To focus on the mastery of key writing and literacy skills so that students are competent in the foundations of written English.
  • To expose students to regular tier 2 vocabulary so that they widen their vocabulary. 
  • To encourage confident and expressive individuals who understand how English teaches us about human behaviour and society.
  • To inspire and empower pupils to take next steps in English beyond The Westleigh School.

 

Learning Journey 
Click to view our English Learning Journeys, please click on the links below:


Long Term Plan
To  view our English Long Term Plans, please click on the links below 

 

“Stories are wild creatures, the monster said. When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?” - Patrick Ness

Examination Board
The examination board for this subject is AQA for English Language and English Literature

Click to view the specification for both English Language and English Literature

Student Resources

The following resources will be helpful for students

Seneca Learning