English and Communication

The excellent English Department at St Paul’s Academy is committed to the belief that all students should make progress in the subject, regardless of their ability. With the flexibility to create different pathways for learning, both in KS3 and KS4, teaching and learning is tailored to ensure that all our students experience the right level of challenge in this subject.

ENGLISH

The English team at St Paul’s Academy endeavour to help our students become curious, critical and imaginative thinkers, readers and writers; develop their ability to express themselves articulately and communicate confidently; broaden their knowledge and understanding of other worlds, lives and experiences and leave the Academy with a love of the subject.

From Years 7 to 11 our students explore everything from Shakespearean drama to memoirs about rock climbing, from William Blake to Maya Angelou. We want our students to engage with, and develop their understanding of, a fascinating range of perspectives and viewpoints. Whether they are creating a dramatic interpretation of ‘A Christmas Carol’ or writing detailed analysis of a novel, we aim to help our students thoroughly understand the themes within a text and the construction of the text.

All of our students will enter a world where the written word is more important than ever. We utilise a variety of strategies to help them express themselves clearly, creatively and for a variety of purposes. Our students love to express themselves and we love helping them do that.

We begin by carefully planning across the long and short term to ensure our students develop a variety of skills across a range of fiction and non-fiction texts. We then ensure our lesson take place in a focused environment and that students receive detailed, productive feedback, which they then act upon. We hope that as a consequence of our best efforts, each student leaves St. Paul’s Academy the best reader, writer and communicator they can be.

MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES (MFL)

The MFL Department at St Paul’s is committed to helping students learn a new language. Students study Spanish, following an exciting, innovative curriculum at both key stages. The curriculum is tailored to suit the needs of all learners so that they achieve their full potential and make excellent progress.

Across both key stages, students have the opportunity to improve their linguistic competence and develop their skills in four areas: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. They also develop their understanding of key language structures so that they can adapt and manipulate them for their own use in everyday situations. It is our aim as a department to help students grow in confidence, becoming independent and creative language learners. At KS3 we have a project based scheme of work so that learning is meaningful. Some examples of Year 7 project work include: story books for primary school children, secret agent character profiles and adverts for their own school in paradise! At KS4 students can follow two different pathways. Students prepare for the GCSE course by studying current themes of interest, such as Identity and Culture, Local area, Holidays and Travel, International and Global issues and School, Work and Future aspirations. Alternatively, students take ‘Languages for Life’: a vocational course aimed at developing their knowledge of culture, travel and love of foreign languages.

We also encourage students who speak another language at home such as French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian or Turkish to complete a GCSE in their native language.

Developing students’ cultural understanding and awareness is extremely important to us. At KS3, students have the opportunity to go on trips abroad, for example, to Christmas Markets in Northern France. At KS4 we have organised successful trips to Paris, Normandy, Barcelona and Valencia to enrich students’ learning experience. In addition to this, each year we celebrate with our ‘Languages Days’. This gives students a taste of other languages such as Catalan, Chinese, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Polish and Ukrainian. Students participate in workshops with a cross-curricular link to sport, technology, art and cooking!