Our aim at Sir Thomas Boteler Church of England High School is to deliver a curriculum that sets a high standard of language and literacy through equipping our students with a strong command of the spoken and written word and to ignite a love for literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. Through their educational journey, we believe that students should gain the knowledge and skill to speak and write fluently, so they can communicate their ideas and emotions to others through their reading and listening. For each year group, we aim to offer a balance of reading, speaking and listening which creates the building blocks for high-quality writing. Our intention is to use cultural capital to underpin our learner’s development enabling them to be confident and informed individuals.

Key Stage 3

Our curriculum design invests heavily in the belief that students need to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information: this includes a rich and varied diet of our literary heritage (both local and national) and exposure to a wide range of non-fiction that deals with current and complex social issues. We expect students to acquire a wide vocabulary to develop the skill to write clearly, accurately and coherently-adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts. Our curriculum has been sequenced so that assessment focuses on the transfer of knowledge and skills: this allows students to build on successes, supported by a constantly evolving and challenging skillset.  Working closely with our Key Stage 2 peers, we ensure that our text choices are ambitious, varied and give our students an extensive experience of literary genres.  It is our purpose to build our students’ ability to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas in a competent way whether it is participating in a debate or demonstrating their ideas to others.

Key Stage 4

At this stage, we focus on the transition from building the foundation of skill and knowledge to the mastery of metacognition in preparation for life post 16. We strive for our students to leave school with a full range of language skills so they will have the ability to participate fully as a member of society. Our diverse range of texts, that introduce unfamiliar and challenging content, offer our students the ability to develop intellectually, socially, emotionally, spiritually and culturally- we place great literature at the heart of our lessons. We build on the ability to refine and secure the skills in writing for a wide range for purposes and contexts and we promote opportunities for students to reflect, challenge and conclude their approaches to analysis and understanding of set texts. Our assessment of reading, writing and oracy is supported by ambitious text choices and our lessons aim to embody subtle and differentiated modelling by placing a substantial value on vocabulary that gives the students lots of writing practice.