We see English at HLC as a journey of discovery as we guide our students to communicate with and interpret the world around us, both in a literal and figurative way. We see our roles as supporting our students to shape who they can be through sharing their ideas, shaping their judgements and broaden their horizons.

Our KS3 curriculum is founded on this concept of a journey as we begin by studying the world around us with a focus on themes, such as New Beginnings and Planet Earth, moving on to looking at Dystopian literature as our students mature, and finally challenge their views through concepts such as Crime and Conflict and Prejudice and Discrimination.

Each of these units interweaves the key skills of Language and Literature as students complete a wider study alongside a core seminal text. We aim to ensure that all our students have engaged with and felt the joy of exploring the best of what literature has to offer. To further enhance students’ love of the written word we work closely with the Drama department to bring literature to life. This includes visiting authors, theatre visits and workshops.

At GCSE we follow the Eduqas specification with our students sitting a Literature and Language qualification at the end of Year 11. For these qualifications, our students study a range of plays, novels and poetry, as well as deliver speeches and presentations. We firmly believe that this inspiring curriculum ensures that our students are equipped with both the fundamental skills of reading, writing and speaking but also develop a love of the written and spoken word that will open doorways to the wider world.