English
Our aim in English is to provide students with the opportunity to build upon their reading, writing and comprehension skills, including understanding a range of texts types and their purpose using both evaluative and analytical skills.
At North Star 240°, our Key Stage 3 English Curriculum aims to provide students with the opportunity to build upon their reading, writing and comprehension skills including understanding a range of texts types and their purpose using both evaluative and analytical skills.
Our curriculum overview builds upon the skills and knowledge acquired at Key Stage Two and introduces the key secondary assessment objectives broken down into developmental and age related expectations. All students in Key stage 3 will study a broad spectrum of texts including fiction and non-fiction which are designed to strengthen and embed key reading and writing skills.
As students reach Year 9, these key skills are developed and fine-tuned through our Power of Reading curriculum which provides students with extended writing pieces intended to strengthen written accuracy and allow creative and analytical expression in preparation for the KS4 transition.
Year 7 & 8 Talk 4 Writing Programme of Study
Why Talk 4 Writing at North Star 240?
Talk 4 Writing is a unique process that uses spoken activities to develop writing skills. Quality writing is created by first expanding and developing students’ oral language skills and then teaching the necessary steps for exceptional sentence, paragraph and text construction.
T4W is powerful because it is based on the principles of how people learn. The movement from imitation to innovation to independent application can be adapted to suit the needs of learners of any stage.
The ‘Talk 4 Writing’ approach enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different text types and themes.
The Talk 4 Writing Curriculum at North Star 240 has been adapted to reflect the assessment objectives of the current secondary national curriculum for English, therefore topics are broken down to ensure there is a focus on the six key assessment objectives throughout the year within our T4W delivery. Due to the needs of our learners, there is a specific focus on the key writing and reading skills stemmed from the primary national curriculum and introducing our assessment objectives which are broken down into developmental stages from KS1 through to GCSE levels at KS4.
Power of Reading
In Year 9 and in alternate terms of years 7 and 8, our students follow the Power of Reading curriculum. The Power of Reading curriculum is about teaching Literacy through using high quality books and creative teaching approaches (such as art and drama). This approach aims to engage and motivate children in their literacy learning. It also enables children to deepen their understanding of texts and provides a meaningful context for writing. The Power of Reading helps to develop inference and deduction and comprehension skills. It also involves children regularly writing in different genres and creates a more cohesive learning experience. Literacy is at the heart of the curriculum and the texts facilitate a range of exciting cross-curricular work.
For more information contact: meghan.hennessey@northstar-academy.co.uk
