At our school, we are passionate about developing confident readers, writers and communicators through a rich, engaging and ambitious English curriculum. We are incredibly proud of our bespoke curriculum, which combines a range of effective teaching approaches, including Pie Corbett's Talk for Writing and carefully planned text-led and media-led units that immerse children in high-quality literature and film. Pupils explore a diverse selection of classic and contemporary texts and write for a wide range of purposes and audiences, creating narratives, persuasive advertisements, informative reports, instructional texts and much more.

Grammar, punctuation and spelling are thoughtfully woven throughout our curriculum, enabling children to apply and develop their skills in purposeful contexts. We place great importance on providing regular opportunities for writing, allowing pupils to practise, refine and showcase their abilities across the curriculum. Each term, our popular Whole School Write brings every child together around a shared stimulus, celebrating creativity and demonstrating progression in writing from Lower School through to Upper School.

Reading is at the heart of everything we do. We believe that strong reading skills unlock success across the curriculum and beyond, and we are committed to ensuring that every child becomes both a fluent reader and is able to effectively comprehend a text. In 2024, we introduced a new reading scheme featuring a wide range of high-quality fiction and non-fiction texts, rich in vocabulary, language and structure. The carefully sequenced progression of reading levels allows children to build confidence and develop both fluency and comprehension skills.

We recognise that children learn to read at different rates and, where needed, targeted interventions provide additional support for pupils who may struggle with fluency or understanding. These interventions are designed to help bridge the gap between reading accurately and reading with depth, enabling children to develop excellent comprehension and a genuine understanding of what they read.

Guided reading sessions take place regularly, with small groups working on focused tasks alongside the teacher. In Lower School, the emphasis is on developing vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and a lifelong enjoyment of reading. As pupils move into Upper School, they continue to build their reading expertise through ambitious vocabulary study, retrieval and inference skills, and evidence-based responses that deepen their understanding of increasingly challenging texts.

Through our love of language and literature, we inspire children to become lifelong readers, thoughtful communicators and capable, confident writers who are well-prepared for the next stage of their education and beyond.