Through the skills of analysis, synthesising, extrapolating meaning and writing fluently, we want to foster a life-long passion for the beauty of the English language in our students.
We use class novels and plays and poetry, operating a spiral curriculum, whereby students re-visit key ideas and build on them, until they are able to read critically with awareness of the writer’s craft and communicate their understanding and enjoyment in discussion and in writing. At the heart of our curriculum is our desire for students to empathise and to understand relationships, psychology and people. We want them to be critical thinkers who understand, appreciate and question the world around them; to learn how lives have been shaped across time; to learn to experience things that in ‘real’ life they may never experience. We want them to experience the beauty and tragedy contained in the world of literature and for this to help shape the people they become.
Our text choices aim to broaden students’ understanding of life’s ‘big’ ideas, using a range of authors to accomplish this. From Shakespeare to Shelley, Woolf to Wordsworth, Agbabi to Blackman, our students experience both canonical and contemporary writing to give them a sense of both continuity and change.
Beyond the classroom, we give our students a wide range of opportunities to attend theatre trips, lectures and workshops to ensure they recognise the direct relevance and application of literature in the real world.
- Key Stage 3 English (Years 7, 8 and 9)
- English GCSE (Years 10 and 11)
- English Literature A Level (Years 12 and 13)
Key Stage 3 - Years 7, 8 and 9
| Year 7, Terms 1-6 | |
|---|---|
| 7.1 | Literary Heritage |
| 7.2 | Intro to Poetry |
| 7.3 | Short Stories |
| 7.4 | A Monster Calls |
| 7.5 | Letter Writing |
| 7.6 | Shakespeare Speeches |
| Year 8, Terms 1-6 | |
| 8.1 | Animal Farm |
| 8.2 | Speeches and Rhetoric |
| 8.3 | Cultural Poetry |
| 8.4 | Noughts and Crosses |
| 8.5 | Noughts and Crosses / The Tempest |
| 8.6 | The Tempest |
| Year 9, Terms 1-6 | |
| 9.1-9.2 | Gothic Fiction |
| 9.3-9.4 | Political Poetry and Protest Writing |
| 9.5-9.6 | Othello |
English GCSE - Years 10, 11
| Year 10, Terms 1-6 | |
|---|---|
| 10.1 | Introduction to creative writing - focus on character, sensory description, 'golden sentences' and punctuating speech. Language Paper 1 (2019 / 2020) - introduce students to 'Walk Through' guides and build exam technique. AQA Power and Conflict poetry - conflict cluster. Introduce flipped learning, comparagraphs and develop analysis. Assess poetry skills though an exam style question. |
| 10.2 | An introduction to Victorian context and Dickens. Reading and analysis of 'A Christmas Carol' - whole text. Recap how to write a thesis statement and develop analytical writing skills (WWHW). Consolidate understanding through motif and theme tracking. Assess understanding through an 'ACC' essay. |
| 10.3 | AQA Power and Conflict poetry - power cluster. Develop analytical writing skills through thesis / comparagraph writing. Assess understanding though an exam style poetry question. Creative writing - focus on openings, structure (drop, zoom, flash, leave) and sentence structures. AQA Power and Conflict poetry - identity cluster. Develop analytical writing skills through thesis / comparagraph writing. |
| 10.4 | Unseen poetry - build independence with approaching poetry and recap analytical writing. Recap Lang Paper 1 (reading and writing sections). Revise 'A Christmas Carol' with a focus on essay planning. Mock exams on Lang Paper 1 , ACC and poetry. Students to prepare for their spoken language presentation over Easter. |
| 10.5 | All students to complete the SLE of the course in class. Students out for WEX. Lang Paper 2 - focus on the reading section and how to approach each question. Teach transactional writing with a focus on DAFOREST and AWFS. Mock feedback. 'An Inspector Calls' cold read. |
| 10.6 | Introduction to context for An Inspector Calls. Read and analyse 'An Inspector Calls'. Develop analytical writing skills through thesis and WWHW writing. Assess understanding with an exam style question. Consolidate knowledge through theme tracking and considering Priestley's intentions. Students to complete a Macbeth cold read / watch over the summer. |
| Year 11, Terms 1-5 | |
| 11.1 | Macbeth context and introduction to the conventions of tragedy. Read Macbeth in full and focus annotations on themes, motifs and key quotations. Develop essay writing skills from Y10 through an exam style question. Assess understanding through an independent essay. Revisit Lang Paper 2 and recap how to approach each question. Revise transactional writing. Mocks on Lang Paper 2 and 'Macbeth' and 'An Inspector Calls'. |
| 11.2 | Revisit unseen poetry and expose students to a range of poems. Build analysis skills. Mock feedback. Begin spiral revision of Lit texts with 2 weeks on both 'A Christmas Carol' and 'An Inspector Calls'. Use the first week to recap and develop understanding and the second week to improve exam technique / essay plannig and writing. Focus on thesis and WWHW writing. |
| 11.3 | Revise Lang Paper 1. Focus on students approaching papers independently and embedding creative writing skills. Class mock on Lang Paper 1 to assess understanding. Revise anthology poetry with a focus on essay planing and thesis writing. Revise unseen poetry. Remove scaffolding resources to build independence. |
| 11.4 | Revise 'Macbeth' for 2 weeks. The first week should be spent developing knowledge of the play / context / key themes / motifs. The second week should focus on developing essay writing skills (thesis, WWHW paragraphs). Use data from the mocks to focus revision on areas of weakness (flexi revision). |
| 11.5 | Revision and External Exams |
English Literature A Level - Years 12, 13
| Year 12, Terms 1-6 | |
|---|---|
| 12.1 | Poems of the Decade: introduce flipped learning and develop analysis skills. |
| 12.2 | Continue Poems of the Decade. Begin to look at unseen poetry and exam technique. Work on analytical writing. |
| 12.3 | Drama. Introduce students to relevant context / conventions of tragedy. Read 'A Streetcar Named Desire and King Lear. Annotate texts with a focus on key themes, motifs, and links to context. |
| 12.4 | Continue with the Drama unit of work. Focus on essay writing and exam technique. |
| 12.5 | Consolidate understanding of the drama texts and consider different interpretations of King Lear. Introduce the NEA unit of the course with students starting their independent research / revision. |
| 12.6 | Introduction to the Romantic poets. Revision of Poems of the Decade. Work on exam technique / essay planning and writing. Mock exams. Feedback. Trip to the Lake District to develop understanding of the Romantic movement. Students to work on NEA over the summer. |
| Year 13, Terms 1-5 | |
| 13.1 | Coursework Writing and Re-drafting (NEA). Continue unit of work on the Romantic poets. Focus on analysis and context. |
| 13.2 | Introduce students to the relevant context for the prose unit on Women in Literature. Begin reading Mrs Dalloway and Tess of the Durbervilles with a focus on character, themes, motifs, methods and context. |
| 13.3 | Continue reading and annotating Mrs Dalloway and Tess of the Dubervilles. Begin to look at structural methods and thematic links. Work on exam technique and essay planning / writing skills. |
| 13.4 | Complete Mrs Dalloway and Tess of the Durbervilles, begin to look at different interpretations and consolidate understanding. |
| 13.5 | Begin spiral revision with Poems of the Decade, Drama and Romantics. Focus on essay writing and 'hitting' assessment objectives. |
| 13.6 | Final revision sessions and external exams. |