AQA (KS4)
KS3 & KS4 English
Overview
Curriculum explainer
Our curriculum is thoughtfully designed to instil confidence and ignite a genuine passion for the language. It systematically nurtures pupils’ critical skills and knowledge until they are firmly grounded, enabling them to write with purpose and read with fluency and enjoyment.
Every facet of the English domain - spoken language, reading, writing, spelling, handwriting, grammar, vocabulary development, and poetry - is meticulously addressed, both as discrete and interwoven threads. Pupils engage in repeated and diversified practice, steadily progressing through well-defined steps, ensuring that learning is applicable across various contexts.
We take pride in nurturing students' sense of identity and self-esteem through a rich tapestry of diverse texts, instilling in them a dual identity as both readers and writers. All pupils emerge as exceptional communicators, regardless of their initial starting points, ready for further study and lifelong engagement with reading.
Subject principles
- Pupils regularly read a range of text types as a group and independently, have frequent opportunities to develop personal responses to texts, and build their background knowledge, tier 2 vocabulary and fluency to support comprehension.
- Writing for a range of purposes, expressing creativity and building writing stamina are developed alongside a deep understanding of grammar, sentence construction, disciplinary writing and underlying spelling patterns.
- Frequent opportunities to develop the components of spoken language are included throughout the curriculum, and each lesson gives pupils multiple opportunities to talk and express their opinion.
- Text choice represents a diverse range of voices, backgrounds and cultures so the curriculum provides windows and mirrors to all pupils.
- There is a single tier of resources that is ambitious for all pupils by offering a low floor and high ceiling in each lesson.
Video guide
Here, our English subject lead Chris Fountain, talks to Sam Barnsley from Twyford Academies Trust to highlight some of the thinking behind the design of our secondary English curriculum. They offer suggestions on what you might need to consider when exploring it for your school too.
Read more about our new curriculum
Our curriculum partner
Twyford Church of England Academies Trust is a multi-academy trust comprising of four high-achieving schools and the Teach West London teaching school hub, one of 87 across the country acting as a local centre of excellence for teacher training and development. Their existing curriculum is built on a solid foundation of the most up to date research into reading and writing. Twyford have a firm commitment that their curriculum should be accessible to all students.