Our English curriculum is text-driven, offering a rich and varied diet of English and world literature that enables pupils to engage with significant literary ideas and the ways that texts work. Pupils learn about character archetypes, narrative arcs and structures, and the conventions of texts within a range of genres. The curriculum is explicitly designed to give pupils a strong sense of self through story, exploring characterisation, motivation, and the over-arching theme of identity. Our choice of heritage texts and literary re-tellings of mythology nurtures pupils in developing their understanding of intertextuality, as well as developing a frame of cultural reference that opens doors to other texts and ideas. Choices of modern, engaging, and accessible novels and plays, short stories and non-fiction are intended to help pupils position themselves within the wider literary landscape. The journey through the story enables and encourages pupils to express themselves confidently and clearly, both orally and in writing, and to become responsible, curious, and successful members of their community.