English

To be light (living in our community and reaching out beyond it) bringing out the God-colours in the world.’

Jesus said, ‘You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world.’ Matthew 5:16

Our curriculum is ambitious for our children and is based on the National Curriculum. Nevertheless, we recognise that this is the minimum entitlement for our children. Each subject is taught as a discrete discipline. Whilst developing our curriculum, links were considered very carefully to build on knowledge and skills within each subject, across the school and across subjects. We also carefully considered our local context, diversity, environmental awareness and health education when designing our curriculum.

English

Our English curriculum aims to equip all pupils with the strong language, reading, and writing foundations they need to succeed across the curriculum and beyond. We are committed to developing fluent, confident readers; articulate speakers and listeners; and writers who can communicate clearly, creatively, and with purpose. Through exposure to high‑quality texts, rich vocabulary, and meaningful opportunities for talk and writing, we nurture a love of literature and empower pupils to understand, interpret, and shape the world around them.

We know that spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing, so oracy skills are carefully threaded throughout the curriculum.

Reading is central to a child’s understanding of the school curriculum and is of vital importance in life. We aim to cultivate a love of reading and do this through exposing children to our diverse reading spine which is filled with books that will develop their understanding of other places, people and cultures. We aim to inspire a sense of curiosity in our children and develop their enthusiasm for reading, whilst also deepening and challenging their thinking. Their journey at Nethersole starts with the Little Wandle phonics programme in their early years.

At Nethersole, writing is at the heart of everything we do and begins in the EYFS where they will develop their early writing skills. The skills are carefully mapped across our curriculum and are linked with the books covered in our reading spine. We aim to give the children the enthusiasm to become lifelong writers where they can accurately and imaginatively develop their knowledge and skills, to write in a powerful manner with a clear understanding of impact, purpose and audience through their knowledge of text types.