Curriculum News

ENGLISH

This will incorporate, Writing, Vocabulary development, Reading and Viewing and, Listening and Speaking. During this  students will learn how to use the English language to effectively communicate for a variety of purposes.

Vocabulary Development

Students will work on developing strategies which writers need when working out how to spell words to enable them to become proficient spellers. These strategies include knowing what words mean, how they sound, how they change form and where words come from. These strategies are referred to as Four Spelling Knowledges: Phonological, Visual, Morphemic and Etymological.

Reading comprehension strategies are to students’ success across the curriculum. Students will engage in many different reading activities in order to strengthen their abilities to make connections with ‘HERE’, ‘HIDDEN’ and ‘HEAD’ information. 

Responding to our class novel and  working in SMART groups targeting specific skills on a needs basis will feature heavily this term.

Listening and speaking skills will be developed through class participation, assembly presentations, Year 7 speeches and scheduled planned oral  presentations.

Writing will have a focus on exploring the Narrative text type which allows students to explore and develop use of descriptive language as well as character and plot development. Proof reading and editing of written work will also be explicitly taught with the expectation that the students take greater ownership and responsibility for this. Frequent Ten Minute Writing sessions will provide students the opportunity to improve their narrative skills by responding to a variety of prompts with foci on accurate sentence and text structure, and using precise vocabulary.

All of the various skills and outcomes covered in the English programme have application across all curriculum areas.