Head of Department: Mr Ruffles (mruffles@clwacademy.co.uk)

Curriculum intent

English is at the core of all subjects.  Our English curriculum is built with breadth and depth, carefully sequenced to enable progression, with a particular focus on developing resilient and passionate readers.

Our ambition is to equip students with the skills needed to be critical, creative, analytical and purposeful writers, as well as maturing into proficient readers of a range of texts. 

We have designed our curriculum to introduce and develop student’s knowledge of fiction, non-fiction, Poetry and Shakespeare, as well as a range of different contexts, literary movements, genres, techniques and concepts. 

Students are given regular opportunities to demonstrate their skills and knowledge, as well as the chance to act on feedback.

English is a very diverse subject, important in its own right and the basis for so much understanding and learning across the curriculum. On a simple level, English encompasses the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening, However the subject also encourages students to imagine, explain, describe, analyse, review, persuade, argue, inform and advise in both writing and in speech. English helps young people to understand the world around them through the study of media in all its forms, such as advertising, film, television, newspapers and magazines.

Students are encouraged to read literature both for individual pleasure and as part of the course. Novels, short stories, poems and drama, both contemporary and classic, are read and studied. A variety of teaching and learning styles are used to encourage collaboration with others and confidence in the individual as a speaker. Students are encouraged with personal reading and the development of study and research skills through library-based programmes of study and access to IT rooms.