English

Reading, writing, spelling, speaking and listening are essential life skills that we teach explicitly in English lessons and implicitly across all other subjects in school.

When students join us in Y7, our primary aim is to develop students’ confidence in their ability to read and write. We help them to develop a love of reading by studying a range of fiction and non fiction texts.

These are interesting and suitably challenging texts to motivate the students to want to learn more and make connections with the world around them. They complete a range of writing based on the texts and learn to respond to feedback and edit their work to make it even better!

Students in Y7 are assessed in all areas of English and a programme of individual learning and a flight path is created for each student for their time at the Park. Students are continually assessed both formally and informally throughout each year and their learning adjusted accordingly. If necessary interventions are put in place to help individual students to make better progress.

All students learn to de-code for reading and en-code for spelling and use these skills to help them to read and write for pleasure and purpose. All students have individual spellings to learn at home as well as a reading book at an appropriate level to bring home, to help develop all aspects of reading.

All students read in a small group at least three times a week within their tutor group and then are taught in ability groups four times a week for English. The curriculum is carefully scaffolded to meet individual needs. We use multisensory approaches with repetition and over-learning to enable the students to remember and apply their learning.

In addition to this, in KS4 students work towards the most appropriate accreditation for them, developing functional reading and writing skills to prepare them for their next stage of education and beyond.