Intent

At William Hulme’s Grammar School, our intention is to provide students with a stimulating English curriculum that aims to cultivate a deep interest in the subject of English in all its multifarious aspects and to develop curious and enquiring minds.  We also seek to upskill them in the capacities of forensic text interpretation, understanding authorial intention, constructing well balanced and well supported arguments, as well as the capacity to feel confident to write in a wide variety of situations for real audiences and purposes.  Great emphasis is placed in the cultivation of skills in reading, writing and oracy and through exposing students to a range of texts that is not limiting, to cultivating an understanding of the world from points of view that differ from their own.

Students are taught well planned and well-resourced lessons that stem from the interests of individual teachers but emerging from comprehensive programmes of study, that are design to ensure that all students are exposed to writing that is critically valued, diverse and challenging. Teachers are given autonomy to play to their strengths within a given framework, and so consequently, the interests and strong subject knowledge create a learning environment that display purposeful application and intellectual rigour. The rich and diverse lessons within a framework of expected outcomes ensures that the entitlement that students deserve is met.

Programmes of study are so devised to build sequentially year on year in terms of content but more specifically in terms of skill.  Each programme of study at KS3 for each year group builds on what has come previously and anticipates what there is to come at KS4 and beyond.  In this way, the learning pathway is measured and thoughtfully constructed, with the elements well connected.

Implementation

The Faculty of English at William Hulme’s Grammar School aims to teach a curriculum rooted in both the English Literary Heritage and in the vibrancy of modern global writing.  The curriculum facilitates exposure to writing that provides the opportunity for close analytical study of authorial intention, writers’ method and an appreciation of the wide contextual factors that are at work on a piece of text.

Students are expected through their study to develop empathetic understanding of themes and ideas expressed by writers and an increasing knowledge of the world around them currently and in the past. The teaching of the curriculum is designed to promote enquiring minds and a desire for pupils to gather cultural capital through an increased knowledge. Independent of thought and of practice at expected at all levels but with appropriate guidance and support where and when necessary.

Reading sits centrally to our curriculum, both inside and outside of the classroom, through the intensive use of the Learning Resource Centre. It is our aim that students become discriminating readers of multiple texts, who are consistently adept at both analysing and making use of interesting vocabulary, grammar with purpose and whole text cohesion. 

Impact

Our curriculum’s impact is one which provides chance and opportunity. The study of English at William Hulme’s Grammar School equips students with proficiency in the life-real skills of analysis, interpretation, argument creation, information synthesis, confident oracy and the capacity to write for a plethora of audiences and purposes. Students are prepared for further study in higher education of immediate entry into the world of employment.