“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
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.