Ark venture English Mastery launches in schools across UK

Wednesday 20th June 2018

This week marks the launch of English Mastery, an Ark venture aimed at transforming the way English is taught in classrooms in the UK.

The programme, which has been trialled for the last three years, is a curriculum and teacher training initiative which focuses on key stage three English.  The programme has several key elements which define its approach, including the use of a knowledge-rich curriculum, dedicating extra time to teaching grammar, explicitly teaching a wealth of rich vocabulary, and bringing English teachers together to assess and work together as a community.

After a successful pilot in seven Ark schools, English Mastery will roll out to 57 schools across the country in September, taking it as far as Northern Ireland, Great Yarmouth and the Isle of Wight. During the month of June, over 350 teachers will attend the two-day induction training in either Birmingham or London.

The English Mastery impact report, published in 2018, concluded that, on average, students in schools that adopted English Mastery made four months’ more progress than similar students in schools that did not adopt the programme.

“We’re really excited to be launching the programme across the country” said Amy McJennett, Director of English Mastery. “We look forward to inspiring a love of reading books in a new cohort of students.”

“We are really proud of the difference the English Mastery programme made to our pioneer students and we are looking forward to working with our 57 new schools to make that same difference to the students in our partner schools.”

Read more about English Mastery here.