English

The English curriculum fits with the whole school aims because the English department is fully committed to ensuring that every student acquire valuable knowledge that enriches their life. The team instils in students an understanding of the importance of the subject by promoting high standards of language and literacy alongside teaching key subject vocabulary and the skills of analysis and evaluation.

The English curriculum offers a rich and diverse range of learning experiences. Students are given the opportunity to read texts by contemporary authors and also those celebrated within our literary heritage enabling them to enjoy and achieve.

Curriculum Implementation

Key Stage 3

In Key Stage 3 we build upon students’ learning from Key Stage 2. Students learn to deepen their understanding of the writer’s craft and viewpoints and perspective as they study the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum. The curriculum offers a wide range of reading texts which include reading plays, novels and poetry, it also create opportunities for students to develop their oracy skills with group, pair work and some drama elements. It is designed to support all students to move on from skills in text comprehension to text analysis.

A key focus in KS3 English is broadening and developing our students’ reading experience and allowing students to be exposed to a range of texts of different genres and eras through schemes of learning. We are also building on ensuring students are reading independently and productively. As a department, we have identified that many of our students are not reading enough literature and non-fiction texts and this is impacting their ability to articulate themselves in a sophisticated manner, as well as limiting their ability to meet the reading objectives in KS4. We have therefore created a long term plan that uses many different text types as a springboard for learning.

All our schemes’ objectives are built upon the AQA exam objectives and we ensure that tasks and assessments are preparing the students for their KS4 course and English and English Literature GCSEs.

Students study Shakespeare in KS3: in Year 7 students read and analyse chosen extracts from various plays to deepen their knowledge on parent-child relation. Study of Shakespeare is further  developed in Year 9 when students read a whole play: The Tempest. These schemes are designed to allow students to explore plot and character and analyse Shakespeare’s craft. The schemes include some drama work and the final assessments are mirrored on the assessment questions given in the Shakespeare section of the GCSE exam.

Students also study a modern play: ‘The boy in the striped pyjamas’. This scheme is delivered in Year 8 and is designed to allow students to know how to approach and analyse a modern drama and to analyse the play form appropriately, a key skill for their GCSEs.

Throughout KS3 students are also exposed to a range of poetry. Students study poetry in year 7, 8 and 9. The schemes are designed to allow students to explore and enjoy poetry and understand how to approach a poem and use key terminology when discussing poems. The schemes build allow students to compare poetry in depth in all years with tasks, poems and analysis becoming more challenging and less scaffolded as students work their way through KS3. By Year 9, students are comparing two unseen poems.

Students also study many novels throughout KS3. They begin with Boy in Year 7, read Animal Farm in Year 8 and Of Mice and Men in Year 9. They also study extracts from the autobiography of Malala – I am Malala in Year 8.  The schemes have been designed to allow students to respond to a variety of different texts in order to broaden their outlook and vocabulary as well as prepare them for the texts studied in KS4. The schemes teach students to analyse author’s techniques and craft and discuss their intentions in detail. We have also included activities allowing students to analyse the structure of texts as this has been identified as an area for development in KS3 and KS4.

The majority of our Year 7 students are stronger in their writing skills than reading and our writing schemes in KS3 are designed to allow students to develop and enhance skills. A key skill they learn to build on is the ability to structure work successfully- both at whole text level as well as at paragraph and sentence level. The students practice skills in transactional and creative writing: both crucial skills for their GCSEs.

All lessons are differentiated in order to ensure that students’ needs are met. Our homework, which is set weekly, seeks to allow students to develop and enhance their learning and is also fully differentiated.

In Year 7 and 8 students attend the Guided Reading lesson in which they get the opportunity to read fiction texts. The aim of the guided reading lesson is to support and improve students’ reading fluency and rapidity. It also helps them in their inference skills and is aimed to enhance their vocabulary and cultural capital.

Key Stage 4

At Key Stage 4 students prepare for and sit the AQA English and Literature exams. Over two years they learn to analyse and evaluate texts such as An Inspector Calls, Christmas Carol and Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet and the poetry anthology. Students also develop their writing skills through exploring transactional and creative and imaginative writing.

The GCSE is assessed through four exams, two in English Language and two in English Literature.

Post-1914 Text and Reading Non-Fiction

Students read “An Inspector Calls”, focusing on how the author has crafted their ideas about key themes and the context of the text.  Whilst studying their literature text, there will be further study of related social theories.  Students are taught the skills of inference and evaluation.

19^th Century Literature

Student will study Victorian literature ”A Christmas Carol”. They will look at the themes in the texts, study the context and the language used in the text.

Poetry

A range of poems will be studied around the theme of “Conflict”.  Pupils will also be taught how to approach unseen poetry.

Fiction and Non Fiction texts and creative and transactional writing

Pupils will explore a range of fiction and non fiction texts written in the 19th, 20th and 21st century and will focus on comparing and making links between them. Pupils will focus on how the writers uses language and structure to communicate their ideas and evaluate the impact and effect of it.