Reading is at the heart of our curriculum

Every unit at Key Stage 3 is built around sustained, challenging reading, and every English lesson follows the same structured reading routine so that students approach each new text with the same clear, consistent support.

Our reading strategy

1. Pre-Reading - Before reading, students are given the key vocabulary needed to access the text, including word origins, and are told the purpose of the reading.

2. Ready to Read - Students prepare to read with a copy of the text in front of them, focused and ready to follow along.

3. During Reading - The teacher models fluent reading aloud. Students then read using one of several supported approaches - reading together as a class, in pairs, or echoing sentences back — and understanding is checked through discussion and questioning throughout.

4. Post-Reading - Students move into guided practice, building on what they have read, understood and discussed.

This routine is used consistently across all three years of Key Stage 3, whatever text students are reading.

Across Years 7 to 9, students study a full-length novel and a complete Shakespeare play every year, alongside poetry, speeches, essays and journalism. Five ideas — narrative, rhetoric, genre, influence and metaphor — are returned to across all three years, each time through more demanding texts, so students build on what they have already learned rather than meeting each idea only once.

Writing is taught through a staged process that develops from sentence-level control in Year 7 to sustained, whole-text argument by Year 9. Students also take part in a Key Stage 3-wide reading programme, in which they read and respond to a piece of world literature roughly every three weeks throughout the three years, alongside the texts studied in lessons.

Year 7

Students begin building their understanding of symbolism, character and structure, and meet their first Shakespeare play of the key stage.

Year 8

Students extend their understanding of genre and historical context, and compare how tragedy is constructed across different forms and time periods.

Year 9

Year 9 is designed to be the most demanding year of Key Stage 3, building directly toward the reading and writing skills required at GCSE.

Supporting all students

Every student is taught the same ambitious curriculum; texts and tasks are not simplified for any group. Where individual students need additional support — for example through adapted resources or additional adult support — this is provided in line with the school's SEND policy and reviewed regularly, so that support builds toward independence over time.

Finding out more

Full details of the units, texts and assessment covered in each year group are available from the English department. Parents and carers who would like more information about the Key Stage 3 English curriculum can contact the school office, who will direct enquiries to the Head of English.

Building on Key Stage 3, preparing for GCSE success

Key Stage 4 English continues the same ambitious approach to reading and writing that students have built across Key Stage 3, while steadily shifting focus towards the demands of the GCSE English Language and English Literature examinations. In Year 10, our priority is GCSE Literature: this keeps the enjoyment of English at the heart of the curriculum for as long as possible and reflects the approach taken at Key Stage 3, while exam-focused drilling is reserved for Year 11. This does not mean Language is set aside — the analytical and evaluative skills the Language exams require are built continuously through our study and discussion of Literature texts. In Year 11, students move through a structured cycle of Language and Literature study, building towards a sustained period of revision and exam practice.

Our Approach

1. Robust, challenging reading — Students read whole texts in full rather than relying on extracts or summaries. The vocabulary and context needed to access each text is taught explicitly before and during reading, so that the challenge students face is the ideas and language of the text itself.

2. Explicit teaching of knowledge and skill — Both the content knowledge students need — plot, character, context — and the exam skills they must apply — analysing structure and language, evaluating writers' methods, constructing an argument — are taught directly and revisited regularly across the two years, so that students build genuine control of both.

3. Discussion and modelling — Teachers model analytical thinking and writing, showing students what a strong response looks like and how to arrive at one. Structured classroom discussion routines give students the chance to test, articulate and refine their own interpretations out loud before they commit them to writing.

4. Independent retrieval practice with Carousel Learning — Students use the Carousel Learning platform — particularly during Year 11 revision — to build a regular habit of low-stakes quizzing, spaced retrieval and self-marking, developing the independence to identify and close their own gaps in knowledge.

Our team of experienced English teachers bring a genuine breadth of interests and backgrounds to their teaching, and share a real passion and enthusiasm for the subject that inspires students of all abilities. We want students to take this mentality on board too: GCSE English is a marathon, not a sprint, and progress is built steadily and securely over the two years. Assessments along the way are there to guide that journey — each one is a signal of what to work on next, not a final verdict.

Year 10

Year 11

Supporting all students

Every student is taught the same ambitious GCSE curriculum; texts and tasks are not simplified for any group. Where individual students need additional support — for example through adapted resources or additional adult support — this is provided in line with the school's SEND policy and reviewed regularly, so that support builds towards independence over time.

Finding out more

Full details of the units, texts and assessment covered in each year group are available from the English department. Parents and carers who would like more information about the Key Stage 4 English curriculum can contact the school office, who will direct enquiries to the Head of English. For questions about an individual student's progress, their class teacher is always the first point of contact.

Year 12

Year 13