In the English department at Jack Hunt Academy, we want our curriculum to challenge students rigorously, exposing them to a range of literature as well as non-fiction texts to broaden their knowledge of the world around them.

Through the lens of differing opinions and stories, we strive to support their journey to developing their own character and embed an ambitious range of key knowledge to propel students towards excellence and to enable them to achieve their aspiration. 

We believe that to be an English scholar, students thrive best when exposed to a range of semantics, vocabulary, structures, rhetoric, and characters to grow their awareness of the subject as well as to inspire them to achieve their aspirations. Through explicit teaching, we strive to challenge students to infer, analyse, evaluate, and create based on their learning of these core concepts which underpin our curriculum. 

To instil strong learning habits, we have developed classroom environments in which the dignity of our students is valued because everybody is encouraged to have a voice to further their learning. We understand the role of oracy in developing writing skills and follow Mary Myatt’s mantra: “writing floats on a sea of talk”. To further strengthen this, we promote writing stamina through our ‘Big Write’ weeks in Key Stage 3 and timed exam paragraphs in Key Stage 4, as well as timed essays in Key Stage 5.