Foundational English

At Maple School, our English curriculum is designed to ensure all pupils, regardless of starting point, develop the core reading, writing and oracy skills they need for communication, learning, independence and life beyond school. Recognising that our pupils all have SEMH needs and often disrupted educational experiences, we prioritise functional literacy, emotional literacy and engagement, alongside academic progress.

The curriculum is carefully sequenced to support pupils to move from emerging communication and phonics skills, through developing fluency and comprehension, towards secure and functional use of English in real‑life contexts. High‑quality texts are chosen to reflect pupils’ interests, lived experiences and emotional development, enabling them to build confidence, empathy and resilience alongside literacy skills.

English is taught through a structured, progressive skills pathway that includes reading, writing and oracy, with clear progression from Emerging, Developing and Secure stages through to Functional Skills Levels 1 and 2.

Reading

• Systematic phonics and decoding for pupils at early stages, using multisensory approaches.

• Explicit teaching of comprehension, inference and retrieval as pupils develop.

• Carefully selected fiction and non‑fiction texts matched to emotional maturity and reading ability.

• Repeated reading, modelling and shared reading to support fluency and confidence.

Writing

• Writing is taught as a purposeful, functional skill, beginning with labels, captions and sentences and progressing to paragraphs, structured texts and formal writing.

• Explicit teaching of spelling, grammar and punctuation, supported by scaffolds and visual prompts where required.

Speaking and Listening

• Spoken language underpins all learning, with structured opportunities for discussion, explanation and presentation.