English Intent

English Curriculum Intent:

As a key language and communications subject, English at Hugh Sexey Middle School is vibrant, innovative and inspiring.  We seek to encourage a love of language and literature in all of our pupils and, through our growth mindset attitude, develop aspirational life-long learners that feel equipped and motivated to do their best in a subject where skills are transferable across the whole curriculum.  Our goal is to ensure that all of our pupils have the grammatical and structural knowledge to create a range of text types independently, developing their creativity as writers, as well as to become passionate readers.  We strive to equip our pupils with the cultural capital they need to succeed academically and engage with the wider society through the teaching of a range of multicultural texts to celebrate diversity, as well as challenging gender stereotypes and identifying positive female role models, forming links to character development and to social, mental and moral wellbeing. 

Our English curriculum is broad and balanced and allows our pupils to develop a curiosity about, and a better understanding of, the wider world and their role within it.  We have planned and sequenced an ambitious and varied curriculum that engages our pupils whilst developing the skills and knowledge they need to be ready for the next stage of their education.  Our broad curriculum covers a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, texts that are both modern and from our literary heritage, encompassing prose, poetry and drama, giving our pupils interesting and varied experiences.  It is well-balanced through the teaching of reading, writing and spoken language. Pupils have opportunities to improve oracy skills across both Key Stages and also have many opportunities to present in front of an audience to develop their confidence in speaking for a range of purposes; drama lessons are taught in KS3 to develop acting in role skills, characterisation, and improvisation.  Our curriculum’s inclusivity, whilst exploring wide ranging issues, events and contexts, allows teachers to adapt lessons according to each class’s needs.  We strive to develop our pupils into independent learners, self-editors, note-takers, critical thinkers and to develop their analytical skills and creative expertise.

Reading is central to our curriculum and we have incorporated a range of reading skills and texts in our schemes of learning to ensure that pupils are exposed to reading on a daily basis.  Each class has a weekly Guided Reading lesson and are exposed to reading comprehension at least once a week.  Grammar is taught through class readers and short texts. 

We enrich English at Hugh Sexey Church of England Middle School by offering opportunities for pupils to: listen to story tellers; meet authors; watch plays in performance; take part in school productions; join reading groups; visit book fairs twice a year; enter competitions; use our excellent library; become junior librarians.

As a team, we are passionate about English and about the value of English in our pupils’ lives.  We seek to enthuse, encourage and grow our pupils’ love of English throughout their four years with us at Hugh Sexey Church of England Middle School and for life.