At Minehead Middle School we make English relevant, interesting and enjoyable. We recognise that English lies at the heart of our children’ success in every subject. Without effective communication skills, a child’s capacity to succeed throughout the whole curriculum is limited. English provides the navigation skills necessary to explore an increasingly complex world and helps our children to achieve and flourish.

English in Key Stage 2 is taught in mixed ability classes by the class teacher.  We follow the Talk for Writing approach to deliver our English curriculum which consists of a balance of reading, spelling, grammar and writing (click on the star below to learn more about Talk for Writing). In Key Stage 3, pupils are taught by experienced English specialists in mixed ability groups. Assessments occur periodically throughout years 7 and 8 and these enable us to make sure pupils are in the correct groups and ensuring the pace of work is challenging. We are building the AQA syllabus into our Key Stage 3 Schemes of Work and pupils will learn how to retrieve information, summarise, evaluate and compare texts which are increasingly challenging. Pupils learn to become enthusiastic and critical readers of fiction and non-fiction and we read a broad range of contemporary fiction, including several whole class novels in year 7.

Our children in both key stages enjoy a very creative and enriching writing curriculum. They have the opportunity to write for a variety of purposes and have clear guidance enabling them to make considerable progress in the areas of sentence structure, vocabulary development and the accurate use of advanced punctuation. The writing topics covered are engaging, respond to children’s interests and experiences and most importantly help children to develop a love for writing. Children make good progress because they are fully involved in their own assessment process; are given time to reflect and act upon feedback; and lead their own target setting.

There is a strong reading culture in Minehead Middle School which we are very proud of. In conjunction with our highly experienced and skilled librarian, tutors monitor the reading of pupils and reading achievements are celebrated on a weekly basis in class and assemblies. Our library is well stocked and is used by all children throughout the school. We offer our children many opportunities to extend their love of reading, writing and speaking through participation in extra-curricular events such as Youth Speaks (where we have reached the National Finals ), Rotary Young Writer and the Carnegie Shadowing group.