English
HPS - English Curriculum Aims
- Lessons will teach children to speak, write, listen and read fluently to communicate their ideas and emotions to others. Reading allows pupils to develop culturally, emotionally, intellectually, and socially.
- Children acquire knowledge to build on what they have already learned.
- English is taught daily by specialist teachers.
The ability to read and comprehend what is read is fundamental for academic potential to be achieved. This is reflected in the Prep’s English curriculum. In the first three years of the school, pupils read one-to-one with a teacher every day. This is continued at least twice a week with the English teacher in the juniors. Throughout, pupils are encouraged to read in their own time and given guidance on what to read and monitored to ensure they read widely and for pleasure.
There is a comprehensive range of books in the library and all classrooms. All pupils are given the tools of writer expression, including formal programmes of grammar and a structured spelling programme. The experienced staff provide a range of stimuli. Oracy skills are developed through class debates, discussions and liaisons with the drama department. The children are rigorously monitored by commercial schemes, including spelling and reading and by assessment of written work. Preparation for examination forms a natural part of its curriculum with additional verbal testing, practice in multiple-choice and comprehension exercises and time-limited creative writing exercises.
The HPS English curriculum provides an opportunity to read great literature that not only takes students outside the realm of their everyday experience but also provides a gateway to the universal ideas and truths that define us as human beings. We develop our pupils’ vocabulary, cultural capital and subject knowledge so that they can read, write and think about language and literature with knowledge and discernment.
