The English Department
Head of English: Mrs M Kennedy
Assistant Head of English: Miss N Church
Context
The English department consists of six members of staff who teach a variety of both KS3 and KS4 classes.
Exam Board
Edexcel English Language.
Edexcel English Literature (Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls and Conflict Poetry).
Curriculum
At Key Stage 3, our curriculum aim is to ensure students receive access to both an ambitious and varied English curriculum, which prepares students for their GCSEs and beyond. Our curriculum has been designed to develop expert mental models for English by exposing students to a wide range of novels, plays, poems, non-fiction texts and short stories.
As well as ensuring our curriculum provides students with ambitious and exciting texts, we have identified core threshold concepts for English which include characterisation, setting, imagery/symbolism and representation, context, structure, form and style, and grammar. Each concept acts as a golden thread that weaves throughout each unit, each year, with the aim of eventually ensuring that students are able to access and understand any text, poem or play they read or study at any point in life.
When students enter Year 10 and 11 they start their GCSE course they study Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, An Inspector Calls and Conflict Poetry. We cover the main literature texts in Year 10 in conjunction with language and writing skills which are embedded each term.
Assessment
Students in Year 7, 8 and 9 complete a range of different assessments within each module and these assessments take the form of knowledge quizzes, presentations and writing tasks.
In Year 10 and 11, students will sit at least one assessment each half-term based on their current module of study as well as two opportunities to complete mock exams (one at the end of Year 10).
Enrichment Opportunities
Throughout the year a variety of enrichment opportunities take place. Competitions and special sessions will also take place throughout the course of the academic year linked to key events, such as World Book Day and National Poetry week.
We also run trips several trips to the theatre to allow students to experience English ‘live’.
‘There is the content – the knowledge and understanding that we want students to accumulate over time; there are the skills we want them to acquire and then there is also this wider sense of developing our students as rounded individuals. We want it all.’
Tom Sherrington – The Learning Rainforest
English Curriculum Information
