Our KS2 Nurture Curriculum – The Foundations of English
The aim for our KS2 curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. By the end of the KS2 curriculum, pupils should have met each national target for literacy in writing, reading, SPaG and spoken language. Our Nurture provision is only intended as a short stay, however we aim to provide an engaging curriculum which supports pupils’ mainstream aims:
- Writing clearly, and accurately with the ability to adapt their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences.
- Using discussion in order to learn; so pupils are able to elaborate and explain their ideas to a teacher or students.
- Showing that they are competent in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.
- Reading easily, fluently and with good understanding, and developing the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information.
- Using a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.
- KS3/4 research and design adapted from OAT English by David Didau
Our KS3 Nurture Curriculum (Year 7 & 8) – Bridging Gaps through ‘Engage, Enjoy, Achieve’
The aim for our KS3 nurture curriculum is to promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written language, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. Our Nurture provision is only intended as a short stay, and therefore we aim to provide an engaging curriculum which supports pupils’ using the modalities of reading, writing and spoken language as vehicles to teach:
- Literary studies
- Writing composition and rhetoric
- Grammar
- Vocabulary
- Spoken language
Our curriculum aims to re-engage reluctant learners and school avoiders, provides ambition for all with adaptation for pupils with SEND, and gaps in knowledge.
Download the KS3 Nurture (Year 7 & 8) Overview
Our KS3 Curriculum (Year 9) – A Concept Curriculum
The essential concepts upon which mastery of English depends have been specified and coherently sequenced. The mastery of English depends on acquiring knowledge in six overlapping areas:
- Metaphor: the ways in which we use language to create meaning.
- Story: the ways narratives are constructed.
- Argument: the knowledge needed to debate and persuade.
- Pattern: the ways tests are organised.
- Grammar: the ability to make judgements about what has and can be communicated.
- Context: the literary, historical, social and theoretical knowledge needed to understand the ways texts have been produced and received.
Our text choices are ambitious and challenging, yet our focus is on enjoyment, discovery, making links, and introducing pupils to essential knowledge, through seminal world literature; Shakespeare; Victorian, Modern and Contemporary Literature; poetry, and non-fiction (which is integrated throughout each unit). The texts studied at KS3 are the vehicles for important curricular concepts that will continue being important in KS4.
There is little expectation of annotation and analysis in Year 9, however more emphasis on speaking, reading, writing and building long-term schema. The implementation of the curriculum depends on the Curriculum Thinking Documentation produced for each unit, which specify core knowledge, and are intended as a teacher guide to sequencing, delivery and assessment.
KS3/4 research and design adapted from OAT English by David Didau
Our KS4 Curriculum
Year 10 – A Bridging Curriculum
The purpose of study in Year 10 is to connect the curriculum concepts mastered in KS3 to the study of literature and language at GCSE. The focus is on introducing the literature set texts in a way which is enjoyable and meaningful rather than on detailed analysis. Similarly, the study of language is intended to build knowledge of core concepts and to provide practise of the key areas of skill. As such, there is no explicit test preparation and students are not studying the composition of exam papers.
Year 10 is spent telling stories, enjoying great literature and pupils keeping an ongoing portfolio of observations about character, theme, plot, setting and the rest. These will be revisited in Year 11 but with further depth. The set texts, ‘A Christmas Carol’, ‘An Inspector Calls’, and ‘Macbeth’ are interspersed with opportunities to learn poems, as well as reading the wide range of literary nonfiction that pupils will need to be familiar to do well in Language. The ‘Power & Conflict’ poetry anthology is taught through a paired and grouped approach, to enable students to make links and comparisons between themes, contexts, language, structure and forms. Lessons make frequent and regular use of low stakes testing as a means to both remembering and thinking about these texts (knowledge from previous lessons, previous weeks, and previous topics). All of this is to make the final year of study as purposeful as possible.
Year 11 – Focussed Cycles
The mastery of threshold concepts in Year 11 have been specified and coherently sequenced. The mastery of English depends on acquiring knowledge and developing fluency in the following areas:
- Understanding the relationship between grammar and meaning.
- Understanding the effect of context, both on writers and readers.
- Understanding the need to use supporting evidence for ideas.
- An awareness of the ways in which language can affect readers.
- Understand how different ways of structuring text can produce different effects.
- Understanding that language can be analysed to reveal a variety of meanings.
- An awareness of the writer behind texts: what are their attitudes, viewpoints and intentions?
- Develop a personal response to the texts studied, along with developing reliable theories to compliment analysis.
- Understanding that characters, settings and plots are constructs.
These concepts are fundamental to help pupils find and make meaning in GCSE English. We want our pupils to perform at the highest level in English Language and Literature. Study takes the opportunity to space and interleave not just the threshold concepts of English but also the curriculum content that’s been covered in Year 10. The point is that pupils will already be familiar with the stories, they are now acquiring the knowledge of how to be analytical.
Pupils will also focus on the detail of their set texts, and on the types of writing they will need to produce to be successful at GCSE. The year is composed of interleaved cycles where students study an aspect of the course. At the end of Year 11 we want our pupils to become increasingly familiar with each component on which they will be tested, and on how to complete successful responses.
