English Vision at Dedworth Middle School

Our guiding principles:

Evidence Informed

From the structure of our curriculum to the pedagogy used to deliver it, our vision is that everything we do is evidence informed. We draw upon a variety of sources such as the EFF, Rosenshein and Walkthrus with the caveat being that we select choices that have research supporting them. We do this for two reasons: 1. If the research has been done and it has been proven to be effective, we have a duty to offer these approaches to our pupils and 2. to add credibility to our profession.

Diverse

Our current curriculum, although populated with links to English Literary heritage, requires a greater diversity of voices from diverse backgrounds and cultures. We want our curriculum to give pupils a broad and rich understanding of the world beyond their own community through exposing them to texts that have and continue to shape our society. However, we also feel that our pupils need to be represented by our curriculum and should be able to “see themselves” in what we study and to that end, we are revising our texts to ensure there is a boarder range of representation in the English program.

Enriching & Empowering

Similar to our intentions with Diversity, we intend our curriculum to enrich the lives of our pupils and offer them both communication skills that stand them in good stead to succeed in life beyond our school and to give them access to literature experiences that will provide them with a broad range of perspectives through which to view the world. Our texts will be high in cultural literacy and be culturally diverse whilst also giving pupils insight into how English Literary heritage formed and is being formed.

Through studying our curriculum, we aim to empower our pupils to be fluent, confident readers and to be effective and confident writers regardless of their starting point. Long-term, we will develop speaking and debating skills so that our pupils can articulate and present their ideas in a way that will enable them to be successful in their live communication. Work is currently going into planning to ensure that oracy skills are being nurtured more and there is a view to do a full oracy review of our curriculum and seek CPD in the teaching of oracy so that our pupils are able to be confident communicators and have the prerequisite skills to thrive in the modern world. Where there are gaps in these skills, we will provide intervention to support their closure and eventual elimination and again, these will be evidence informed.

Knowledge & Vocabulary Rich

Vocabulary allows us to express ourselves; the more we possess, the more we can accurately communicate our thoughts, feelings, opinions and desires. Shared vocabulary breeds understanding and allows us to communicate with the world around us. When we lack vocabulary, we encounter a barrier. Our curriculum aims to lower that barrier and enrich our pupils with a varied vocabulary beyond that which they would encounter without our curriculum. We will pre-teach and explicitly teach vocabulary and that vocabulary which is necessary for learning will be mapped to ensure pupils have the best chance of engaging successfully with what we teach. We will follow EEF guidance by providing repeated exposure to new words and providing opportunities for pupils to use new words.

As mentioned earlier, we will ensure that new knowledge builds on and links to prior. The knowledge we will impart in our pupils aims to not only allow them to succeed in the subject but also to give them the confidence and ability to engage with society. Although currently, Oracy is not as prevalent as we would like, it is a CPD priority for the SL and Deputy SL and attempts to include oracy in planning under revision is underway.

Sequenced and Progressional

The sequencing of our new curriculum will be just as logical as the one it replaces. We will work backwards from the skills and concepts we want our learners to leave our school with and ensure that the building blocks of knowledge and skills allows understanding to be built. New knowledge will be linked to old knowledge and concepts and skills will be carefully sequenced to be delivered in logical steps – for example, with grammatical knowledge, sequencing would start at word class and subject/verb/object understanding before the teaching of clauses. Where relevant, there will be explicit links and repetitions of key concepts and skills to offer pupils opportunities to consolidate and deepen understanding. [As of Autumn 2024, the SL and Deputy SL are reviewing the sequencing of learning to ensure knowledge and concepts are adequately mapped across the curriculum in light of curriculum changes and to forward-plan for coverage in the upcoming curriculum re-development in KS3.

Accessible

Our English curriculum is designed for everyone to enjoy and engage with and it is our aim to allow all pupils, regardless of need or barrier, to thrive within our teaching and learning. Our planning is sequenced to build on prior knowledge and our upcoming Reading Support Strategy (as of Autumn 2024) will aim to narrow the reading gap for our pupils to eliminate that confidence and engagement barrier (this includes our FreshStart Phonics program, Precision Teaching Support and Fluency support). Our lesson design closely follows the principles of Rosenshein to make lesson content manageable and memorable. We explicitly teach vocabulary and key concepts prior to learning to enable pupils to fully access their lessons. We utilize retrieval activities as part of our teaching routine to recall relevant knowledge and embed it in working memory. Modelling following the I do, We Do, You do pattern is being embedded to support pupils acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Our feedback policy aims to address misconceptions and respond to pupil need to better-enable pupil engagement and success in our subject.

The subject lead must acknowledge the work of Oak National Academy and its inspiration of this curriculum. (https://www.thenational.academy/blog/our-approach-to-curriculum) .