The subject curriculum matches the national curriculum and follows the United Learning Curriculum developed nationally by subject experts.
At the heart of the English curriculum is a desire to engender a love for reading with developing literacy as a central column of our practice. Students read a range of literary forms in every year group to incrementally develop their skills in analysing novels, poetry and drama. The curriculum balances the study of whole texts with more a concise focus on key moments in order to allow for students to appreciate literature as an art form whilst also equipping them with the necessary skills to succeed. Our curriculum further places an enhanced focus on oracy to develop the ability of students to express and articulate their thoughts and experiences to empower our students. Students leave Sheffield Springs Academy with an appreciation of the literary canon, a desire to explore and engage with modern texts and the skills required to flourish in modern Britain.
English subject plans elucidate a clear and logical ‘big picture’ with discrete ‘units’ mapped out over the course of both KS3 and KS4. This equips students with a clear roadmap for the development of their skills over the course of their 5 years at the academy year group providing a cohesive experience for all students as they gradually acquire the knowledge and proficiency in key literacy skills required to succeed at KS4. These ‘big picture’ plans are supplemented by medium-term plans which articulate a clear vision for each discrete unit of learning over the course of a half-term. These plans are constantly adapted and rewritten to match the requirements of the new academic year and the needs of our cohort.
Challenge is embedded throughout the sequence of learning. This is achieved primarily in our selection of texts as students study a range of challenging texts throughout their studies in KS3 and KS4. All summative assessments are clearly mapped out in the whole-year plan and curriculum snakes meaning that all teachers are aware of the demands of these end points and are focussed on equipping students with the knowledge and skills required to succeed. In addition to an ambitious curriculum, ambition and challenge are a central tenet of day-to-day pedagogy within the department. Students are constantly demanded to push themselves through the inclusion of challenge tasks as well as projects and units throughout the year which allow students to apply their learning and combine this with their own passions and interests.
Our medium-term plans or ‘overviews’ offer a clear roadmap for teachers as each of the ‘building blocks’ of content is sequenced logically over each topic. In each lesson, core knowledge is identified along with tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary meaning that teachers have a clear concept of the ideas and terminology which should be imparted in each lesson. Over the course of each sequence, these ideas and terms are revisited and are applied in a more complex manner in the form of increasingly demanding in-lesson tasks and assessments. Our long-term planning ensures that knowledge and skills are imparted year-on-year as topics are consistently revisited, for example where we teach a variety of Shakespeare plays in KS3. This equips students with the requisite skills to analyse forms and genres whilst further ensuring that learners have a diverse curricular diet.
The overviews provide a broad ‘journey’ of learning and identify the constituent ‘building blocks’ which must be taught within a sequence, with plans increasingly articulating a more joined-up approach to developing skills in KS3. The development of knowledge clearly underpins the KS3 Scheme of work and overviews with this being coherent across KS3 through the integration of similar texts and forms across Y7, Y8 and Y9 (for example, Shakespeare is taught in each year group). There is an enhanced focus on the component steps for students to execute key skills in English Language and Literature at KS4 with clear strategies and frameworks to support students, but the curriculum at KS3 needs refinement in terms of ‘building up’ to this execution of skills in KS4.
The entirety of the curriculum in KS3 is focussed on establishing a bedrock of knowledge which is constantly threaded throughout the curriculum in later years. Primarily, students in Y7, 8 and 9 are instructed in critical reading skills to become fluent readers who do not only read sounds, but also read for meaning. This establishes a firm foundational ability to decode texts which is the bedrock for all future success in English. Beyond this, KS3 lessons consistently allow students to establish proficiency in a range of key critical reading skills including inference, analysis, evaluation whilst further honing and developing their creative talents. In addition to establishing this foundational complement of skills, the English curriculum imparts knowledge vertically with students acquiring a bedrock of knowledge of specific genres (such as Shakespearean tragedies in Y8) which they will later apply in their GCSE studies. At a granular level, each lesson in English features inbuilt Assessment for learning in the form of recall testing to diagnose misconceptions and gaps in knowledge. This ensures that students are all able to access content and succeed in their studies in later years even if they have encountered any gaps in their learning.
Students at KS3 encounter a rigorous curriculum with high expectation and demand placed on them in a similar manner to KS4. Despite this, teaching at KS3 is more focussed on the development of knowledge and skills which students can later apply at KS4. As such, content is ‘adjusted’ at KS3 as skills are more isolated in KS3 units, for example in the focus on developing inferential skills early in Y7. Students follow the same broad curriculum and encounter the same knowledge and texts at KS3, but students with significant ‘gaps’ in their literacy acquisition are identified by the literacy team and are entered for further intervention in the form of Lexonik (commencing Autumn 2023). Where significant gaps in learning are identified in the form of summative assessment, teachers have ample opportunity to ‘reteach’ key concepts after the assessment before moving on to subsequent topics.
Lessons are always planned as part of a broader sequence with key knowledge and content identified and mastered across a short period of lessons. Each lesson begins with a ‘Do Now’ which identifies any gaps in learning whilst further allowing for the diagnosis of misconceptions to be addressed. Each lesson/sequence of lessons features a specific piece of knowledge or skill to be mastered by students with whole class Assessment for Learning activities used to indicate the degree to which this knowledge has been mastered within this sequence. Discrete pieces of core knowledge are sequenced logically in order to allow students to acquire the fundamentals before then applying this knowledge in a more advanced manner later in the sequence or topic.
Understanding that good teaching is not achieved across individual lesson sequences is a key pillar of pedagogy in English. Common themes across topics are identified in advance, for example the themes of poverty and social responsibility in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘An Inspector Calls’, with these themes being revisited at a larger scale across not only multiple sequences, but across multiple units. This allows students to encounter and re-encounter familiar concepts in different contexts in order to develop a rich and interconnected schema. Beyond this, each lesson begins with a recap of learning across all of the topics already taught. When being taught ‘An Inspector Calls’ for the first time in Y11, students will consistently recall content taught in Y10 when responding to ‘Do Now’ questions on ‘Macbeth’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’, again in order to ensure that this knowledge is developed and retained beyond an individual sequence.
Sequencing across the year largely centres on the concept of revisiting and recalling skills and knowledge in a systematic manner. In English Language, students establish key analytical skills in KS3, refine these in Y10 and increasingly apply these in an exam context in Y11. At KS4, students consistently revisit previously taught topics in the form of curriculum audits/knowledge testing which is supplemented by extracurricular provision in the form of teacher-led revision sessions and online platforms such as Seneca as students consistently re-visit the skills and concepts they have already encountered in previous units of work. At KS3, students focus primarily on the acquisition of key analytical skills with students in Y7, at first, focussing on the fundamental skills of reading for meaning and inference in their study of the adventure genre. Students apply what they have learned about the adventure genre in their own compositions in half term three before progressing to a more analytical approach to reading of texts in their study of War poetry.