Being a confident and articulate English student involves a large number of complicated skills.
English Mastery believe that the best way to create these sorts of learners is by introducing them systematically to the wonders of grammar, vocabulary and reading for pleasure, alongside the traditional literature teaching that we all know and love.
There is a clear vision, logic and rationale to how our Key Stage 3 English curriculum can do just that through our Literary Heritage, Mastery Writing and Reading for Pleasure units.
The Traditional pathway is for students who are at or above age-related expectations whilst the Foundation pathway supports students currently working below age-related expectations as they catch up with their peers.
Students on the Foundation pathway study and access the same rich curriculum, but we give them additional tailored help to scaffold their early progress through English.
We also recommend that Foundation students are screened for additional phonics intervention. From our experience, phonics is the best and quickest method of improving the reading ability of struggling readers. We recommend that these struggling readers are then given additional phonics teaching during the school day to help them access the full curriculum in the future.
Students study the grammar they need at their particular moment of development.
Students need to master certain foundational grammatical elements before moving on to more complex skills; if they don’t understand how an independent clause works, they will be unable to avoid comma splices.
Therefore, in Mastery Writing, students start on the unit that is most appropriate for their needs. For example, while most of your Year 7 classes will start on Mastery Writing 2, your weakest and strongest classes will probably start on Mastery Writing 1 and 3 respectively.
Classes then progress through the Mastery Writing units according to what they have mastered so far – this ensures they are always studying the grammar that is most relevant for them in that moment. We believe these separate pathways give all students the best opportunity for success.
