ENGLISH
Department vision
As a department we aim to encourage the development of sensitive, articulate and thoughtful individuals who can use language effectively and appropriately in as wide a range of situations as possible in preparation for the skills they will need later in life. We reinforce specific values objectives which are linked with whole school aims. Our aim to enable students to develop into sensitive, critical and efficient readers who form the habit of reading for pleasure, interest and information; In discussion, we foster in all discussion with students as well as in their written work, attitudes and arguments that are rational, without prejudice and evidential.
Year 7
| Topic | Learning Outcomes |
Term 1 | Novel – Ruby in the Smoke/ Coraline/ others | Information retrieval and decoding, inference around characters. Introduction to ‘PQE’, exploration of fantasy/adventure/other settings/ creative and imaginative writing. Glossary/vocabulary building. |
Term 2 |
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Term 3 | Gothic Literature (Dracula, ‘The Red Room’, ‘The Tell Tale Heart’) | Conventions of the Gothic genre. Contextual influences. Character tropes and how today’s stories are heavily influenced by the Gothic. Creating tension and mood. Comparison of writers’ methods. |
Term 4 | A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare) | Decoding older texts/language. Exploring dramatic techniques and structure. Contextualisation of attitudes towards love and gender. Structures of Shakespearean writing in general. |
Term 5 |
| Building cross-curricular links (Hist/Politics/English/Classics). Understanding context and conflict. Imagery and literary technique enhancement. For b) exploring other cultures and different perspectives. |
Term 6 | End of Year exams Myths and Legends | Exams & exam reflection To build understanding of our classical literary heritage. Storytelling and oracy skills. Greek tragedy structure and concepts such as ‘hubris’ and ‘hamartia’ and how they apply to stories of the past as well as now. |
Year 8
| Topic | Learning Outcomes | |
| Term 1 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon | Information retrieval and decoding. Inference around characters. Building on creative writing skills from novel-inspired prompts. Considering disability and marginalised voices. Identities and relationship exploration. |
| Term 2 | A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens | Descriptive writing. Understanding literary heritage and Dickensian England. Cyclical narratives. Structure of a novella and Victorian stylistics. How authors present key characters and use them to promote wider messages. |
| Term 3 | Macbeth | Inference and analysis of language and structure, as well as dramatic features. Contextual influences and writer’s intentions. Contextualisation of attitudes towards power and gender. Structures of Shakespearean writing in general. |
| Term 4 | Macbeth cont. and Travel writing | Writing persuasively and via different forms (articles, speeches, letters etc.). Exploring the background and culture of different places and sharing information through transactional writing. Comprehension skills. Understanding Form, Role, Audience, and Purpose. |
| Term 5 | Animal Farm by George Orwell | Political and historical influences on texts. Social class and class commentary. Allegory and its purpose. Rhetoric and persuasion in speeches. Analysis and consideration of the writer’s wider choices. Building further cross-curricular links (History/Politics). |
| Term 6 | Exams and Poetry – Multicultural. | Exams & exam reflection Identifying and writing about evidence in further depth. Imagery and literary device development. Exploration of culture and identity in the UK and beyond. Attitudes towards minority groups and multiculturalism. Inference, analysis and effect on the reader. |
Year 9
| Topic | Learning Outcomes | |
| Term 1 | Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck | The Great Depression and its literary influence. Exploring marginalised characters and their wider function/message. ‘PQELSC’ skills – embedding context into answers. Creative writing from alternative perspectives. |
| Term 2 | An Inspector Calls – J.B Priestley | Exploring character development. Moral and ethical messages in literature. Dramatic methods in 20th Century literature. Considering social class and generational differences and how they are reflected through literature. |
| Term 3 | The Woman in Black – Susan Hill | Considering connotations and denotations. Gothic pastiche and how 19th C texts influence more modern novels. Creative writing and tension building. Considering women in literature – their depiction but also Susan Hill’s creation. Inference and deduction skills. |
| Term 4 | ||
| Term 5 | Love and Relationships poetry ‘The Signalman’ by Charles Dickens | a) Comparing two poems and based on the key themes of love and relationships. Reading for meaning. Analysis of language, structure, form. Contextual influences and different perspectives. b) Developing creative writing and short story structures. Developing understanding of horror/gothic genres. Creative writing embedded for preparation for Y9 exams (section B) |
| Term 6 | Exams and Film Studies unit | Exams and exam feedback. To critically interpret films and clearly express those interpretations orally and in writing. Demonstrating knowledge of the historical development and cultural impact of film as an art form. Engaging with questions of ethics and social issues. Analysing a range of cinematic visual styles. Developing evaluation skills – how effective is the director in achieving _______’. |
Years 10 & 11
Year 10
| Topic | Learning Outcomes | |
| Term 1 | Creative Writing Power and Conflict Anthology | Reading for meaning and approaches to unseen prose. Structuring responses and enhancing technical precision. Embedding a more ambitious and sophisticated vocabulary. Exploring 500 word stories and how to structure them effectively. Building character and setting. Understanding the context of a poem and support the poem/poet’s wider message. To identify phrases which demonstrate meaning and wider ideas. To explore writers’ intentions and compare. To enhance analytical vocabulary. |
| Term 2 | Lord of the Flies | Discuss the role human nature plays in the novel. Understand the symbolic nature of characters. Explain how the novel functions as a loss-of-innocence story. Clarify the symbolism of the different boys and of various objects on the island. To be able to write high-level PQELSC paragraphs on themes/characters. |
| Term 3 | Lord of the Flies Transactional Writing | Discuss the role human nature plays in the novel. Understand the symbolic nature of characters. Explain how the novel functions as a loss-of-innocence story. Clarify the symbolism of the different boys and of various objects on the island. To be able to write high-level PQELSC paragraphs on themes/characters. To be able to write in a range of scenarios regarding form, role, audience, purpose. Exploring the conventions of a speech, article, and letter in particular. To consider rhetoric and high order ideas such as Pathos, Logos, and Ethos. |
| Term 4 | Romeo and Juliet | How do playwrights present themes/characters? Life in Elizabethan/Jacobean England and its impact on literature. Pathetic fallacy/symbolism and its wider function. Contextualisation of attitudes towards power, love and gender. Structures of Shakespearean writing in general. |
| Term 5 | Romeo and Juliet | |
| Term 6 | Power and Conflict Anthology Speaking and Listening | Understanding the context of a poem and support the poem/poet’s wider message. To identify phrases which demonstrate meaning and wider ideas. To explore writers’ intentions and compare. To enhance analytical vocabulary. To express sophisticated ideas in an articulate manner. To showcase a strong repertoire of vocabulary. Organising and structuring a presentation effectively. Working on charisma and strategies to engage the audience. Listening to questions and feedback and responding in a concise yet informative manner. |
Year 11
| Topic | Learning Outcomes | |
| Term 1 | Unseen Poetry | To maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response to unseen poetry. To be able to make textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations. Analysing language, form, and structure and comparing poems and their wider ideas. |
| Term 2 | Language Paper skills | Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas. Select and synthesise and synthesise evidence from different texts. Explain and comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using subject relevant terminology. Compare writers’ ideas and perspectives, as well as how these are conveyed across two unseen texts. |
| Term 3 | Revision of key Literature texts | |
| Term 4 | Revision of Language paper disciplines. | |
| Term 5 | ||
| Term 6 | Pre-enrolment tasks for WG6 |
Post 16 at WG6
Year 12
| Topic | Learning Outcome | |
| Term 1 | A Streetcar Named Desire (Paper 1) A Thousand Splendid Suns (Paper 2) | To develop a complex understanding of A Streetcar Named Desire, connecting analysis to context and dramatic conventions (AO1, 2, 3). Our students learn to interpret writer’s purpose with sensitivity and express their ideas in a confident and articulate manner. We gain a comprehensive understanding of Hosseini’s text, reviewing the implementation of key themes such gender inequality, religion, war and family. The text is framed by complex contextual issues, such as the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and used as a springboard to explore key issues such as sexism, racism and global politics (AO1, 3, 4). |
| Term 2 | A Streetcar Named Desire (Paper 1) A Thousand Splendid Suns (Paper 2) | To develop a complex understanding of A Streetcar Named Desire, connecting analysis to context and dramatic conventions (AO1, 2, 3). Our students learn to interpret writer’s purpose with sensitivity and express their ideas in a confident and articulate manner. We gain a comprehensive understanding of Hosseini’s text, reviewing the implementation of key themes such gender inequality, religion, war and family. The text is framed by complex contextual issues, such as the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and used as a springboard to explore key issues such as sexism, racism and global politics (AO1, 3, 4). |
| Term 3 | Poems of the Decade (Paper 3) Wuthering Heights (Paper 2) | We aim to establish excellent knowledge of all poems from the ‘Poems of the Decade’ collection, ensuring students are aware of poetic voice, purpose and key language and structural analysis. In doing so, students are equipped with the skills to interpret poems from an unseen perspective. An ability to compare is engendered throughout the topic, in preparation for paper 3. (A01, 2, 4) Students will read and analyse Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Understanding of knowledge and contextual influences is essential and is returned to throughout the course. As with ATT, analysis of narrative style and genre underpins exploration of the text. Students also begin the two prose texts, in preparation for the assessment. (AO1, 2, 3 ,4) |
| Term 4 | Poems of the Decade (Paper 3) Wuthering Heights (Paper 2) | We aim to establish excellent knowledge of all poems from the ‘Poems of the Decade’ collection, ensuring students are aware of poetic voice, purpose and key language and structural analysis. In doing so, students are equipped with the skills to interpret poems from an unseen perspective. An ability to compare is engendered throughout the topic, in preparation for paper 3. (A01, 2, 4) Students will read and analyse Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Understanding of knowledge and contextual influences is essential and is returned to throughout the course. As with ATT, analysis of narrative style and genre underpins exploration of the text. Students also begin the two prose texts, in preparation for the assessment. (AO1, 2, 3 ,4) |
| Term 5 | Revision/ Mocks Exams/ Exam Feedback | Learning from terms 1-4 will be synthesised, ensuring that knowledge can be applied in exam conditions. |
| Term 6 | Introduction to coursework | show knowledge and understanding of a variety of strategies for reading texts, including reading for detail of how writers use and adapt language, form and structure in texts – show knowledge and understanding of ways to interpret and evaluate texts independently and in response to interpretations by different readers – show knowledge and understanding of the contexts in which texts have been produced and received and understanding of how these contexts influence meaning – show knowledge and understanding of a range of literary texts and make connections and explore the relationships between texts – show knowledge and understanding of the ways texts can be grouped and linked to inform interpretation – identify and explore how attitudes and values are expressed in texts – communicate fluently, accurately and effectively their knowledge, understanding and evaluation of texts – use literary critical concepts and terminology with understanding and discrimination – make appropriate use of the conventions of writing in literary studies, referring accurately and appropriately to texts and sources – make connections and explore the relationships between texts. |
Year 13
| Topic | Learning Outcome | |
| Term 1 | Othello (Paper 1) English Victorian Verse (Paper 3) | To develop a complex understanding of Othello connecting analysis to context and dramatic conventions (AO1, 2, 3). Our students learn to interpret writer’s purpose and consider the significance of alternative interpretations. Students develop knowledge and an analytical perspective on a variety of Victorian poems, preparing to write an essay about two poems in exam conditions. As well as understanding poetic conventions of the time, students must also develop comprehensive connections to context (AO1,2,3) |
| Term 2 | Othello (Paper 1) English Victorian Verse (Paper 3) | To develop a complex understanding of Othello connecting analysis to context and dramatic conventions (AO1, 2, 3). Our students learn to interpret writer’s purpose and consider the significance of alternative interpretations. |
| Term 3 | NEA: Drafting Coursework | Students are expected to showcase exceptional knowledge of their chosen texts, developing a confident and comprehensive essay style. Students will be able to implement all assessment objectives through a mature and critical style (AO1,2,3,4,5). |
| Term 4 | Paper 1 Revision: A Streetcar Named Desire Paper 2 Revision: Prose | Revision and final exam preparation Revision and final exam preparation |
| Term 5 | Paper 3 Revision: Poems of the Decade Paper 2 Revision: Prose | Revision and final exam preparation Revision and final exam preparation |
| Term 6 |
Related Careers
The major strength of success in English is the ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing. Good communication is vital in all careers and a high level is expected by employers in all professions.
- Teaching
- Journalism
- Media
- Law
- Communications
- Information
- Civil Service
- Publishing
- Theatre Management
