“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savour their songs.”
Nelson Mandela
At St Luke’s Academy, English is a core subject. We understand and value the importance of reading, writing, and communication and use it to prepare our students to become lifelong and independent learners. We have a number of aims:
- To help students develop a love for reading.
- To develop students’ communication skills so that they become enthusiastic and knowledgeable speakers, listeners, readers, and writers.
- For our students to understand the importance of standard English and how and why it is used.
- To help students express their ideas, feelings, experiences, aspirations, and hopes through the use of language.
- To ensure students leave St Luke’s Academy with an English GCSE/entry-level qualification so they are equipped to continue their education or pursue employment in the wider world.
English Curriculum
KS3
English in KS3 is called Theme as we are using a thematic approach to deliver it.
KS3 Theme intent
For year 7 & 8, within English, “core skills” are taught over a two-year rolling program using a thematic approach. Through using specific themes, to embed a range of English techniques including SPAG, writing and reading skills, students are able to develop these core skills whilst learning about the world. The development of student’s confidence in these core skills then allow them to build a foundation upon which they can move on up into KS4 English and reaching their full potential.
| Year 7 | |||||
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Road to success What does success look like in everyday life? Inspirational speakers. How can we become successful in life and at St Luke’s? How we can be in charge of our own successes. |
V for Victory Exploring WWII. VE / VJ day what is it and what does it represent? How did WWII impact the different children from various countries? |
Young Explorers Christopher Columbus, Francis Drake, Neil Armstrong and James Cook... How have these explorers changed the world as we know it today? |
Natural Disasters Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. Why and where do they happen? |
Celebrations Pupils explore various celebrations from birthdays; Christmas & balloon festival. There are so many different celebrations around the world. How are they different? What do they celebrate? Identify other cultures. |
On the Go As the Summer is here, great sporting tournaments occur too. The history of sports. Pupils exploring different types of inter country sport championships. |
| Year 8 | |||||
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Poems on a Theme It’s Raining Cats and Dogs! Explore poems about dogs and cats. Investigate form and language and make comparisons. Write a poem from the point of view of a pet. |
World War 1 Learn about the causes of the war, the western front and its trenches, the home front, the end of the war and how we commemorate this hugely significant historical event today. |
Instructions and Explanations Exploring instructions & explanations. Study possessive apostrophes and pronouns. Invent and introduce an art machine. |
Animals in captivity Explore issues around animals in captivity. Study adverbials and expanded noun phrases |
Myths and Legends Legends of the Sea Using captivating mythical stories of selkies and mermaids, use higher level reading skills and write their own sea myths. |
Reports Narratives of Liberation Explore recounts using biographies from the civil rights movement |
KS4
Reading and the enjoyment of reading runs through the KS4 curriculum. The intent is for pupils to be able to appreciate language and structure and of what they read, as well as along side these develop their skills in both reading and writing. The curriculum enables pupils to meet the assessment objectives (AOs) and hone the knowledge and cultural capital they need to become lifelong learners. Texts studied include both fiction and non-fiction engaging with a broad range of genres, times periods and authors.
The curriculum also looks to develop communication skills in our pupils, through opportunities for speaking and listening and writing. Explicit teaching of vocabulary, grammar, spelling, punctuation and essay writing skills is undertaken through a connection with a class novel.
Pupils are encouraged to be creative in their own writing and emulate inspirational authors that we study. So, currently, English Language and Literature are closely linked allowing our pupils to analyse language structures and author intent, whilst developing their own flair and voice.