Secondary English
Our English curriculum aims to equip students with practical speaking, reading, writing and critical thinking skills needed for everyday communication and workplace success, whilst fostering a deep appreciation of language and literature.
English curriculum intent
At North Star 180°, our Key Stage 3 English Curriculum aims to provide students with the opportunity to build upon their speaking, reading, writing and comprehension skills including understanding a range of text types and their purpose using both evaluative and analytical skills.
Our curriculum overview builds upon the skills and knowledge acquired at Key Stage Two and introduces the key secondary assessment objectives broken down into developmental and age related expectations. All students in Key stage 3 will study a broad spectrum of texts including fiction and non-fiction which are designed to strengthen and embed key reading and writing skills.
At Key stage 4, the curriculum aims to enable all students to achieve more than they thought possible in English.
Our ultimate aim is to ensure that all students achieve the very highest grades in both English Functional Skills and GCSE English Language through effective and rigorous exam preparation.
English Implementation
Students receive 4 to 5 one-hour English lessons per week, along with tutor-led reading sessions twice a week. Our lessons incorporate a range of activities, including retrieval tasks and work at the word and sentence level, gradually building up to text-level analysis in both reading and writing. We place a strong emphasis on explicit teaching and delivering a knowledge-rich curriculum.
The members of the Secondary department continue to receive CPD for new initiatives and ways of teaching the new GCSE specifications. This has taken the form of external courses in which members of staff are expected to share resources and concepts upon their return, or internal training organised by the Head of Department. Keeping constantly abreast of new pedagogies and schools of thought is essential for continued development and all members of the department are passionate about evolving as top-class practitioners.
The English Key Stage 3 curriculum is designed in such a manner that all the skills necessary for success at GCSE are practiced and honed throughout the pupils’ initial three years of study. All assessments are designed with this in mind in which all skills are assessed against the GCSE criteria; however, deliberate structuring and scaffolding is used to ensure that all assessments are accessible (yet still suitably challenging) to all pupils. This allows the department to more effectively track progress over time by using the same language to assess from Year 7 all the way through to the end of Year 11. Each yearly programme of study affords pupils the chance to critically read a range of challenging text types and to write creatively for a range of purposes and audiences.
Key stage 3 (Years 7, 8, and 9)
Talk for writing.
‘Talk for Writing’ is a unique process that uses spoken activities to develop writing skills. Quality writing is created by first expanding and developing students’ oral language skills and then teaching the necessary steps for exceptional sentence, paragraph and text construction.
Talk for Writing is powerful because it is based on the principles of how people learn. The movement from imitation to innovation to independent application can be adapted to suit the needs of learners of any stage.
The ‘Talk for Writing’ approach enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different text types and themes.
The Talk for Writing Curriculum at North Star 180° has been adapted to reflect the assessment objectives of the current secondary national curriculum for English, therefore topics are broken down to ensure there is a focus on the six key assessment objectives throughout the year within our Talk for Writing delivery. Due to the needs of our learners, we place a specific focus on key writing and reading skills rooted in the Primary National Curriculum, while introducing assessment objectives that are progressively structured from KS1 through to GCSE levels at KS4.
Initially, Year 9 using the Talk for Writing approach and as the year progresses, we transition into working towards English Functional Skills.
Key stage 4 (years 10 and 11)
Schemes of work and lessons are designed to offer students an array of opportunities to plan, draft, write and edit their work, in order to create a well-crafted piece of writing and to develop students to become both competent and confident writers.
In Functional Skills English, the focus is on practical reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills that are applicable in everyday situations and the workplace. For GCSE English Language, students engage in a more detailed study of a range of fiction and non-fiction texts, developing analytical, evaluative, and creative writing abilities. Both pathways emphasise the importance of clear communication, critical thinking, and the ability to respond effectively to various types of written and spoken language, preparing students for further education and employment.
Assessment objectives enable the students to:
- AO1: Apply language analysis methods, using relevant terminology and writing coherently
- AO2: Demonstrate a critical understanding of language use concepts and issues
- AO3: Analyse and evaluate how language features and contextual factors contribute to meaning construction
- AO4: Explore connections between texts, using linguistic concepts and methods
- AO5: Demonstrate expertise and creativity in using English to communicate in different ways
- AO6: Use sentence structures and vocabulary for clarity, purpose, and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation
English impact
Routine work sampling reveals that feedback is having a
positive impact on pupil outcomes. The use of purple pen is now an embedded
strategy within the department and continues to showcase the progress that
pupils make because of the feedback they are given. Furthermore, such sampling
highlights a consistency of teaching and learning approaches and a consistency
of standard regarding pupil work. As a result, all members of the department
appear to share the same vision of excellence that we have for all pupils.
