As a department, we recognise the breadth of significance that English has in the lives of our students. As the National Curriculum states, “English has a pre-eminent place in education and in society. A high-quality education in English will teach pupils to speak and write fluently so that they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others and through their reading and listening, others can communicate with them.” High levels of literacy are crucial to the development of our students, but the subject is so much more than that, promoting creativity, empathy, emotional intelligence, and fostering a love of reading in all its forms.

Throughout Key Stage 3 and 4, pupils will develop the ability to read and write analytically. Not only will they be able to infer meaning from texts, but they will be able to engage critically with complex ideas and develop their own opinions on a range of topics and themes. Pupils will also develop their creativity and essential life skills through the crafting of fiction and non-fictions texts.

Our vision is for all students to experience the full range of written English texts: for fiction, they will read prose (as full novels, short stories, and extracts from longer texts), poetry, and plays (including Shakespeare); for non-fiction, they will read letters, newspaper and magazine articles, speeches, essays, and advertisements. The content of these texts will embrace a range of social and cultural experiences in different historical contexts, from the ‘classic’ British texts of Charles Dickens and William Golding, to more contemporary voices such as Imtiaz Dharker and John Agard.