We promote learning environments where students discuss and explore issues in texts in a calm, serious and controlled manner where all feel safe to express their view and opinions during class and group discussions and debates; promoting a collaborative working environment where both group and independent work are valued and fostered. We aim to spark curiosity through a range of topics and issues that enable students to appreciate and empathise with others’ viewpoints in the classroom and in the texts we study. We explore how writers present respect and dignity through their language, viewpoints, plots and characters and how we can reflect that in our own creative writing. We
discover how dignity and respect can be gained and lost through language use and how issues from a range of contexts and cultures can deepen pupils’ understanding of  themselves and the world around them.

We seek to develop pupils’ curiosity in literary exploration by evaluating and judging characters, themes, language and writers’ intentions, aiming to build knowledge of how language works grammatically and in a range of contexts to suit form, purpose and audience. We build a bank of literary and linguistic terminology to enable students to analyse and question texts effectively and empower them by expanding their vocabulary. We also build knowledge of important genres and historical contexts that influence the production and reception of the texts we read allowing them the opportunities to learn about and reflect upon different viewpoints, perspectives and ethical values. We teach pupils the key skills necessary to read, write, comprehend, analyse, evaluate and compare texts successfully across the curriculum. We see how these skills can be applied in real life contexts through the reading and writing of non-fiction texts. We also build oracy skills that enable students to confidently express themselves and their viewpoints clearly with reason, and reflection

We believe that our curriculum provides pupils with life-long communication skills that will benefit them throughout the whole school and in later life. These include reading, writing and oracy skills that will be necessary for them on their future pathways in employment and further study. We seek to find opportunities to show the relevance of their learning to future pathways and links to other subjects. We encourage pupils to set goals which will stretch and challenge them and then to be able to reflect on their achievement and use feedback to improve, amend mistakes and misconceptions and make progress independently. We encourage students to approach the learning of new and varied texts with curiosity and an enquiring mind. We encourage them to explore unfamiliar situations, ideas, perspectives and challenges that are faced by characters and writers in fiction and non-fiction texts and consider how they can learn from this to help them flourish.