English

Curriculum

15 Nov

Curriculum intent

The English department aims to foster literate, articulate, and creative students who can effectively communicate with their peers and the modern world. We have a strong focus on mastering spelling, punctuation and grammar and high expectations of the vocabulary they use. As pupils learn to talk and write as literary scholars, we celebrate their successes through creative opportunities. We provide every opportunity to help children read with confidence, thereby nurturing a lifelong love for learning. We are unapologetically ambitious in our determination to ensure all children read ambitious texts and enjoy analysing language.

Curriculum implementation

At Christ Church Secondary Academy, we are committed to equipping our students with the tools to build a brilliant future for themselves. Within our English curriculum, we provide our students with a wealth of knowledge and access to cultural capital through well-considered, diverse texts. We develop students’ compassion as we explore various contextual backgrounds and significant historical events.

Our curriculum is designed to be inclusive and unapologetically ambitious. We build courage in all our students because, regardless of their starting point or background, they engage with the same ambitious texts. We have implemented a 'spiral curriculum' approach and have carefully mapped core knowledge and skills which we revisit and revise frequently. This strategy supports students to apply their acquired knowledge in fresh contexts, thus deepening and refining their understanding.

We assess students’ knowledge and understanding using formative and summative assessment tasks in every unit of work and provide time for children to reflect on their feedback and make necessary improvements. In addition to this, we place a special emphasis on teaching grammar throughout Key Stage 3. Our goal is to foster a purposeful and creative relationship between grammar and writing. This is achieved through explicit instruction on grammatical concepts relevant to the writing process, developing students' awareness of language choices in the texts they read, and enhancing their understanding of the language choices they can make in their own writing.

Beyond the classroom, we continually aim to develop our students’ curiosity through a range of activities, including theatre trips to see productions such as 'Noughts and Crosses,' 'Matilda,' 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe,' 'The Woman in Black,' and 'Romeo and Juliet'. We even had the pleasure of hosting the ‘Rubbish Shakespeare Company’, who performed 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' in our school Theatre. Additionally, our Creative Writing club, led by a member of the Maths department, provides students with a creative outlet. We also host engaging assemblies with guest speakers, including 'Blind Dave,' who shared insights from his book 'From Light to Dark,' and a representative from our local food pantry at Yardley Wood Baptist Church. Furthermore, we also offer an after-school intervention workshop for selected students to help them increase their reading age.

Our academy's library plays an important role in our Home Learning strategy, encouraging all students read for 30 minutes every day. To demonstrate how much we value books, we gift Year 6 students a novel on their Induction Day to read during the summer holiday and gift Year 7 students with another book for their Christmas holiday, this ensures books are in the homes of all our families.