English

The English curriculum at Altus School aims to encourage students to develop their understanding of language and literature across the ages and from different parts of the world becoming more sensitive to others and the world around them. We strive to engage students with English, building confidence through personalised, smaller-scale learning, aiming to develop core literacy and life skills alongside self-belief. We achieve this using a variety of texts and practical application to foster a love of reading, writing and speaking and listening, preparing them for a return to a different educational provision pre 16 or a post 16 provision.

English is at the heart of the curriculum as through it, students learn how to communicate and how to understand themselves and others. We target the practical application of core language abilities – reading, writing, speaking and listening and communicating – in real-world contexts, which are essential skills for our students’ futures.

Reading – students learn to read a range of texts with fluency and confident, identifying and extracting main information, following lines of argument and understanding different text types (reports, articles etc).

Writing – the curriculum is designed around writing with clarity, accuracy and effectiveness, using correct spelling, punctuation and grammar without assistance. Students practice various forms such as letters, email reports and essays and learn to adapt their content and style for different purposes and audiences.

Speaking, Listening and Communicating – We aim to build the confidence and skills in verbal communications throughs activities such as discussions, presentations and group work.

Students join us with a wide variety of ability, success and engagement in English and Literacy. For both Key Stages, we offer various approaches chosen to engage and stretch. These include

Key stage 3

Students are taught through a theme-based curriculum using a variety of recent and more standard texts. The aim is to engage them with an enjoyment of reading and to encourage writing skills. We also prioritise on spelling, punctuation and grammar to ensure students build up their confidence to use them independently in their own writing.

Key stage 4

All students are taught the skills needed for Functional Skills with some also being prepared for GCSE English Language through the study of a wide variety of texts, stimulus driven writing and skills practice. There is an overlap with the Speaking and Listening and the Functional Skills is more in-depth but is appropriate for our students as it develops confidence to enable them to move forward successfully.