English

Our English curriculum is organised around and driven by high-quality, language rich texts, that have been specifically chosen to meet the diverse needs of our small, mixed-age classes. In EYFS children have English lessons through ‘Drawing Club’ – a unique sequence of child-led reading and writing sessions designed to inspire children’s imaginations in line with their developmental age. This approach sets the ambitious, creative and imaginative tone for all our subsequent learning in English and instils a love of reading, writing, language and literature from the outset.

In KS1 and KS2 children follow a four-year rolling curriculum of challenging texts from a wide variety of genres, cultures and heritage, carefully chosen to connect to themes and ideas in other subject areas where appropriate and meanigful. Each term a main text leads the English lessons, and supplementary texts and extracts are used to embellish, deepen for further explore an idea, theme or writing skill.  We purposefully choose ambitious texts as teaching texts, and take an inclusive approach to supporting all children to access it. Wherever possible, the text choice mirrors the curriculum approach in other subjects, starting with the concept of self and then working outwards to the world and beyond each academic year. Themes and key ideas are colour-coded to demonstrate how our curriculum strands of therapeutic, spiritual and ecological are considered in teaching and learning.