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English
Our intent
We aim to provide an inclusive, challenging, and engaging English curriculum that will allow all students to develop expert subject knowledge in both English Language and English Literature. We seek to stimulate intellectual curiosity within the classroom, encouraging students to make connections to the wider world and foster a love of the subject that will make them lifelong readers and confident interpreters of a wide range of texts. Through an academically rigorous, forward-thinking and research-led pedagogy, we seek to nurture inquisitive minds, develop student expertise, and give our learners the important life skills, empathy, and compassion that comes from the study of literature and language.
Curriculum and Assessment Maps
Year 7
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
Myths and Magic Part 1
Legends and Language Change
Writing for the Real World Part 1 Reading, communicating and writing in different transactional forms, including:
|
Myths and Magic Part 2
Studying Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’
Poetry and Identity Part 1 Studying and creating poetry:
Writing for the Real World Part 2 Reading, communicating and writing in different transactional forms, including:
|
Poetry and Identity Part 2
Studying and creating poetry:
Writing for the Real World Part 3 Completing Baby Beacon school magazine project |
| * R&R (Read and Review) Lessons
In these weekly lessons, students complete a variety of independent reading tasks while one-to-one discussions and feedback is given by the teacher on rotation. |
R&R*
Reading ‘Oh My Gods’ and exploring how traditional myths are retold in modern contexts |
R&R*
Reading non-fiction and exploring what real-world writing looks like |
R&R*
Reading ‘The Bone Sparrow’ and exploring themes of hope and survival |
| Assessment Pieces
A piece of imaginative writing linked to topics studied. |
Assessment Pieces
Literature – extract-based focus on ‘The Tempest’ |
Assessment Pieces
A piece of transactional writing linked to topics studied. |
|
| Key vocabulary | Learning forms:
fables, lore, myths and legends Learning about characters: protagonists and antagonists Recapping AFOREST (alliteration, facts, opinions, rhetorical questions, emotive language, similes and tone) Learning new persuasive techniques: tricolon, superlatives, anaphora, imperatives Revision of writing sentences: fronted adverbials, parentheses, main and subordinate clauses. |
Learning theatrical terms:
ensemble, unison, duologue, soliloquy, aside and iambic pentameter Learning new tonal terms: sibilance, plosives, stress and intonation New terms: byline, masthead, tabloid, broadsheet, persona, anecdote and rapport. |
Learning poetic forms and structures: iambic and trochaic meter, rhythm, rhyme, ballads, Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets, odes, elegies and dramatic monologues
Key term: juxtaposition |
| Outside the taught curriculum | Opportunities for students include:
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| Suggested reading | Please see our Year 7 Recommended Reading List for ideas: | ||
Year 8
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
The Gothic and Ghoulish
Exploring spine-chilling short stories and excerpts from both classic and contemporary novels
|
Transactional Unit
Focus on logos, pathos and ethos. Comedy Gold Studying Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado about Nothing’
|
Power and Conflict Poetry Unit
Synthesis Unit: Combining Transactional and Comedy Writing – Baby Beacon
|
| * R&R (Read and Review) Lessons
In these weekly lessons, students complete a variety of independent reading tasks while one-to-one discussions and feedback is given by the teacher on rotation. |
R&R*
Reading around the Gothic and Ghoulish genre |
R&R*
Exploring non-fiction including a number of ‘Female Voices’ |
R&R*
Reading around the Comedy Genre |
| Assessment Pieces
Reading task based on an unseen spine-chilling story |
Assessment Pieces
Transactional task, writing for a specific purpose, audience and form |
Assessment Pieces
Extract-based analysis task on unseen poetry on the theme of war |
|
| Key vocabulary | Learning new literary styles and terms:
macabre, allegory, foreshadowing, the Gothic, the Outsider, omniscient narrators, third-person subjective, unreliable narrators |
Learning new persuasive techniques:
rhetoric, anaphora, epiphora Learning about media bias, proof-reading purpose, audience and form |
Learning comic terms:
wit, absurd situations, visual humour, incongruity, dramatic irony, innuendo, euphemism, malapropisms, puns, farce, slapstick |
| Outside the taught curriculum | Opportunities for students include:
|
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| Suggested reading | Please see our Key Stage 3 Recommended Reading List for ideas: | ||
Year 9
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
Imaginative Writing
Nineteenth-Century Short Stories and Non-Fiction
|
Studying ‘Whose Life is it, Anyway?’ – Brian Clark
Studying Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’
|
The Modern Novel
Studying ‘Animal Farm’ – George Orwell
|
| * R&R (Read and Review) Lessons
In these weekly lessons, students complete a variety of independent reading tasks while one-to-one discussions and feedback is given by the teacher on rotation. |
R&R*
Wranglestone – Darren Charlton Reading Sherlock Holmes stories: The Case of the Speckled Band and The Red-Headed League |
R&R*
Reading around the nineteenth-century genre (from wide school selection, both fiction and non-fiction) |
R&R*
Reading around modern literature Reading Challenge |
| Assessment Pieces
Imaginative Writing piece |
Assessment Pieces
Reading C19th Fiction and Non-Fiction task, analysing, identifying and comparing unseen passages |
Assessment Pieces
Literature task, based on a whole-text exploration of ‘Othello’ |
|
| Key vocabulary | Learning new creative writing terms:
Perspective, in media res, focalizer, omniscient narrative voice, personification, motif Learning terms about self-expression: autonomy, orator, bureaucracy |
Learning new tragedy terms:
tragedy, catharsis, hamartia, anagnorisis, hubris, Machiavellian, catalyst, tragic hero |
Learning new terms:
Allegory, fable, satire, irony, authorial voice, cyclical narrative, foreshadowing, rhetoric, propaganda, revolutionary, Marxism, capitalist, communist, fascist, socialist, Soviet totalitarianism, corruption |
| Outside the taught curriculum | Opportunities for students include:
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| Suggested reading | Please see our Key Stage 3 into Key Stage 4 Recommended Reading List for ideas: | ||
Year 10
English Language
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
|
English Language Paper 2:
Non-fiction and Transactional Writing
|
English Language Paper 1: C19th Fiction and Imaginative Writing
|
Paper 2 English Language:
Spoken Language Endorsement
English Language Revision Period: Revision of Paper 1
|
|
| Assessment Pieces
Students will complete a Common Assessment Task in November 2022 consisting of a transactional writing task, either an article or a speech, assessed against AO5/6 for GCSE Paper 2 Section B. |
Assessment Pieces
Ongoing teacher-selected formative assessments, to include: practice exam questions/paragraphs/plans, assessing relevant skills |
Assessment Pieces
Students will complete a full paper 1: Fiction and Imaginative Writing /64 in their summer examinations in June 2023. Students will also complete their Spoken Language Endorsement in July 2023, assessed at three levels: distinction, merit and pass. |
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| Key vocabulary | Some key terms, not exhaustive: | Further key terms for English study can be found here: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms | ||
| auditory (sound), visual (sight), kinaesthetic (movement), olfactory (smell), tactile (touch/ feeling)
alliteration anaphora/epiphora assonance bias connotation/denotation emotive language Ethos (an appeal to ethics) hyperbole imperatives/comparative/interrogative imagery irony Logos (an appeal to logic) |
juxtaposition
metaphor narration, first person narration, third person objective information Pathos (an appeal to emotion) rapport register rhetorical question Stream of Consciousness subjective information symbolism tone tricolon/rule of three verisimilitude |
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| Outside the taught curriculum |
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| Suggested reading | Suggested Key Stage 4 Reading List; we also strongly recommend embellishing reading to include more modern non-fiction.
Websites like Letters of Note and Speeches of Note are useful, as is daily reading of opinion-based journalism, such as the Guardian, the Times or the Independent for articles and reviews. |
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English Literature
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
English Literature Paper 2: The Modern Text
(Teacher choice of An Inspector Calls, Lord of the Flies, Never Let Me Go or The History Boys)
|
English Literature Paper 1: Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’
|
English Literature Paper 2: AQA Love and Relationships Poetry Anthology and Unseen Poetry
|
| Assessment Pieces
Students will complete a common assessment in early January 2023, completing a practice exam question in timed conditions. |
Assessment Pieces
Ongoing teacher-selected formative assessments, to include: low-stakes assessments and practice essay questions/paragraphs/plans, assessing skills |
Assessment Pieces
Students will complete a Macbeth assessment in their summer exams in June 2023. |
|
| Key vocabulary | Lord of the Flies:
Allegorical, omniscient, democracy, civilisation, savagery, anarchy, symbolic, human nature, foreshadows, utopia, dystopia, dichotomy, hierarchy, messianic, allusion Never Let Me Go: Anagnorisis, Bildungsroman, dislocation, dystopian, edify, euphemism, hegemony, human condition, institutionalised, mundane, non-linear storytelling, nostalgia, othering, pastoral, transgression, unreliable narrator An Inspector Calls: Mouthpiece, audience surrogate, polemical, catalyst, stichomythia, domestic sphere, social expectations, climatic curtain, hegemony, pretences The History Boys: Farce, satire, alienation, absurd, unrequited, eccentric, retrospective narrator, breaking the fourth wall, non-linear, dramatic irony, intertextual references, euphemism, flashforwards/flashbacks, catalyst, innuendo and double entendre, apotheosis, meretricious |
Macbeth:
Five-act Shakespearean play includes: exposition, complication, crisis, resolution and denouement, tragic hero, catharsis, hubris, hamartia, anagnorisis, protagonist, antagonist, peripeteia, pathos, soliloquy, blank verse, stichomythia, aside, allegory, epithet, Divine Right of Kings, Great Chain of Being. Additional key terms for English Literature study can be found here: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms |
General Poetic Terms:
Stanza (e.g. couplet, tercet, quatrain, sestet, octave etc.), end-stopped lines, caesura, enjambment, contrast, motif, simile, metaphor, symbolism, concrete and abstract images, personification, pathetic fallacy, conceit, voice, tone, alliteration, sibilance, rhyme, rhythm, pace, meter, hard or soft consonants, plosives, relevant poetic form (e.g. elegy, sonnet (Petrarchan, Elizabethan), ballad). Love and Relationships: natural or pastoral imagery, Romantics, dramatic monologue, Petrarchan sonnet, free verse, Punglish, idiom, poet laureate, tercets, ambiguous endings, nautical or cartographical imagery, Edenic |
| Outside the taught curriculum |
|
||
| Suggested reading | Suggested Key Stage 4 Reading List.
Resources to support Literature study can be found on the British Library website, in the ‘Discovering Literature’ section. |
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Year 11
English Language
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
|
Paper 2 English Language:
Non-fiction and Transactional Writing
|
Paper 2 English Language:
Non-fiction and Transactional Writing
|
English Language Revision Period:
Revision of all modules completed so far
|
|
| Assessment Pieces
Students will complete a Common Assessment Task in the November exam session in 2022, consisting of a 7a and 7b question, with a transactional writing task, assessed against AO5/6 for GCSE Paper 2 Section B. Additional assessments may be made of Q7a and b) style questions, or other areas of focus, by teachers. |
Assessment Pieces
Additional assessments may be made of Q1-7b style questions, or other areas of focus, by teachers. |
Assessment Pieces
Ongoing assessments completed in topics of student’s choice. 1 piece per week’s allowance. |
||
| Key vocabulary | Some key terms, not exhaustive: | Further key terms for English study can be found here: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms | ||
| alliteration
anaphora/epiphora anecdote assonance bias connotation/denotation emotive language hyperbole imperatives/comparative/interrogative imagery irony juxtaposition |
metaphor
narration, first person narration, third person objective information rapport register rhetorical question subjective information symbolism tone tricolon/rule of three |
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| Outside the taught curriculum |
|
|||
| Suggested reading | Suggested Key Stage 4 Reading List; we also strongly recommend embellishing reading to include more modern non-fiction.
Websites like Letters of Note and Speeches of Note are useful, as is daily reading of opinion-based journalism, such as the Guardian, the Times or the Independent for articles and reviews. |
|||
English Literature
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
English Literature Paper 2: AQA Love and Relationships Poetry Anthology
|
English Literature Paper 1: The Nineteenth Century Novel (Teacher choice from Great Expectations, Frankenstein, A Christmas Carol, Jekyll and Hyde)
|
English Literature Revision Period – Revision of all modules completed so far
|
| Assessment Pieces
Students will complete: an essay on the Love and Relationships poetry anthology; both 27.1 and 27.2 unseen poetry questions in November/December 2022, in exam-conditions. |
Assessment Pieces
Students will complete an assessment in February/March 2023, on their nineteenth-century texts, in exam-conditions. |
Assessment Pieces
Ongoing assessments completed in topics of student’s choice. 1 essay per week allowance. |
|
| Key vocabulary | Love and Relationships:
natural or pastoral imagery, Romantics, dramatic monologue, Petrarchan sonnet, free verse, Punglish, idiom, poet laureate, tercets, ambiguous endings, nautical or cartographical imagery, Edenic General Poetic Terms: Stanza (e.g. couplet, tercet, quatrain, sestet, octave etc.), end-stopped lines, caesura, enjambment, contrast, motif, simile, metaphor, symbolism, concrete and abstract images, personification, pathetic fallacy, conceit, voice, tone, alliteration, sibilance, rhyme, rhythm, pace, meter, hard or soft consonants, plosives, relevant poetic form (e.g. elegy, sonnet (Petrarchan, Elizabethan), ballad) |
Frankenstein:
framed narrative, epistolary fiction, galvanism, Romanticism, the Sublime, the Age of Enlightenment, transgression, doppelgänger, Gothic / Gothic Outsider, hubris. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Gothic, duality, epistolary, sublime, uncanny, hubris, social expectations Great Expectations: bildungsroman, serial/periodicals, autobiographical, retrospective narration, narrative tension, cyclical narrative, gothic setting, character doubles, post-Industrial Revolution Victorian social structures A Christmas Carol: avarice, predestination, novella, want, miserly, redemption, prophetic, staves, ephemeral, repentance |
Additional key terms for English Literature study can be found here: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms |
| Outside the taught curriculum |
|
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| Suggested reading | Suggested Key Stage 4 Reading List, though students may like to prepare for future A Level study using our KS5 Reading List
Resources to support Literature study can be found on the British Library website, in the ‘Discovering Literature’ section. |
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Year 12
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
Students have two teachers for their A level study. Each teacher will take students through a different aspect of the course.
Paper 1: Aspects of Comedy – Wider AO4 Comedy Genre and Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ Students study and learn the generic conventions of comedies, with exploration of how texts develop across the centuries and decades. Using an array of texts, from ancient Greek plays and middle English poetry in excerpts from Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath, up to modern day satire, autobiographies, and screenplays, including Fight Club, Small Island, Richard Curtis and Nora Ephron scripts, students explore how comedy responds to socio-political movements, moral shifts and cultural trends. Students produce presentations to help build communication skills on movements such as Restoration Comedy, Theatre of the Absurd and Comedy of Manners to build their knowledge of the genres. Students then explore Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, looking particularly at how the text operates within the comedic genre. They build confidence and expertise in analysing dramatic methods and are able to communicate and relate their ideas with increasingly perceptive ideas on the texts as the term progresses. They will be:
Paper 2: Elements of Social and Political Protest Students will be studying a range of texts within the Social and Political Protest tradition. During this first term they will study: Unseen Social and Political Protest texts, across a range of genres and time periods, and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood. Whilst studying these texts, particular attention will be drawn to:
|
Students have two teachers for their A level study. Each teacher will take students through a different aspect of the course.
Paper 1: Aspects of Comedy – Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ (continued) Students will continue their investigation into Shakespeare’s play, looking particularly at how it operates within the comedic genre. They will be completing further study on:
Paper 2: Elements of Social and Political Protest Students will continue to study a range of texts within the Social and Political Protest tradition. During this first half term, they will complete their study of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood. Non-Exam Assessment Preparation – Applying Critical Theories and Prose Study Students will study literary critical theories and be encouraged to read a range of texts through this lens. Students will learn how to apply the following theories to a prose novel or short story collection:
After selecting their prose texts, students create and select their own investigation question which is supported by the teacher. |
Non-Exam Assessment Preparation – Applying Critical Theories and Prose Study – (continued)
Students will study literary critical theories and be encouraged to read a range of texts through this lens. Students will learn how to apply the following theories to a prose novel or short story collection:
After selecting their prose texts, students create and select their own investigation question which is supported by the teacher. Paper 1: Aspects of Comedy – 1c Preparation Students study and prepare for section 1c in Paper 1, starting their exploration of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ by Oscar Wilde Paper 2: Elements of Social and Political Protest Students will be studying a range of texts within the Social and Political Protest tradition. During this term they will commence their study of William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ |
| Assessment Pieces
Students will be assessed on an Unseen 1a Social and Political Protest essay in November 2022. |
Assessment Pieces
Students will be assessed on a Paper 1 1a The Taming of the Shrew essay in February 2023. |
Assessment Pieces
Completing first draft of NEA Assessment 1 – Prose essay of 1250-1500 words, using a critical lens to investigate a novel or collection of short stories Students will be assessed formally during the end of Year 12 examination series on Paper 1: The Taming of the Shrew 1b essay question and Paper 2: 2b The Handmaid’s Tale essay questions |
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| Key vocabulary | Key terms for English Literature study can be found here: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms | ||
| Outside the taught curriculum |
|
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| Suggested reading | Our full guidance for the course is available in the A Level English Literature Handbook, which all students are issued with. This includes recommended radio programmes and podcasts.
Wider reading on all modules is highly recommended. The A Level Reading List is coded to help identify texts within the genres of comedy and social and political protest. Wider reading on literary criticism (namely Marxism, Feminism, Post-Colonialism, Eco-Criticism) is also encouraged; further details on the NEA can be found here: NEA Reading List We also recommend: Beginning Theory – Peter Barry; Aspects of the Novel – EM Forster; The Norton Anthology of English Literature; The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism |
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Year 13
| Key Learning Constructs to be developed over the academic year | Scheme of Learning
Autumn Term |
Scheme of Learning
Spring Term |
Scheme of Learning
Summer Term |
|
Students have two teachers for their A level study. Each teacher will take students through a different aspect of the course.
Paper 1: Aspects of Comedy – 1c Preparation Students study and prepare for section 1c in Paper 1, completing their exploration of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ – Oscar Wilde and commencing their study of ‘Emma’ – Jane Austen. Students will investigate both Austen’s novel and Wilde’s play, looking particularly at how they operate within the comedic genre. They build confidence and expertise in analysing dramatic and narrative methods created by writers, and are able to communicate and relate their ideas with increasingly perceptive ideas on the texts as the term progresses. They will be:
Paper 2: Elements of Social and Political Protest Students will be studying a range of texts within the Social and Political Protest tradition. During this first term they will study: William Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ and start looking at Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’. Whilst studying these texts, particular attention will be drawn to:
Non-Exam Assessment Preparation (Poetry Study) Students will complete the study of literary critical theories and be encouraged to read a range of texts through this lens. Students will learn how to apply the following theories to a poetry collection:
After selecting their poetry texts, students create and select their own investigation question which is supported by the teacher. |
Students have two teachers for their A level study. Each teacher will take students through a different aspect of the course.
Paper 1: Aspects of Comedy – 1c Preparation Completing the study of ‘Emma’ – Jane Austen and starting revision of Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ Paper 2: Elements of Social and Political Protest This term focuses on the delivery of Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’, looking at approaches to 2b style essay debate questions. The focus will draw together in the second half of the term to 2c essays, applying knowledge and understanding of all social and political protest texts studied (‘The Handmaid’s Tale, Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’ and ‘The Kite Runner’) SPP texts (HMT, KR and Songs of Innocence and Experience) Non-Exam Assessment Preparation (Poetry Study) Students will complete and submit their first draft of their poetry NEA, and following discussion with their NEA supervisor, they will redraft this for submission around late March/early April |
Paper 1: Aspects of Comedy
Revision of all sections of Paper 1. Paper 2: Elements of Social and Political Protest Revision of all sections of Paper 2. |
Assessment Pieces
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Assessment Pieces
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Assessment Pieces
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|
| Key vocabulary | Key terms for English Literature study can be found here: https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms | ||
| Outside the taught curriculum |
|
||
| Suggested reading | Our full guidance for the course is available in the A Level English Literature Handbook, which all students are issued with. This includes recommended radio programmes and podcasts.
Wider reading on all modules is highly recommended. The A Level Reading List is coded to help identify texts within the genres of comedy and social and political protest. Wider reading on literary criticism (namely Marxism, Feminism, Post-Colonialism, Eco-Criticism) is also encouraged; further details on the NEA can be found here: NEA Reading List We also recommend: Beginning Theory – Peter Barry; Aspects of the Novel – EM Forster; The Norton Anthology of English Literature; The Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism |
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Further information
Staff
- Ms L McKee (Head of Department)
- Mrs M Bates (Second in Department)
- Miss J Glendenning (Assistant Headteacher)
- Ms E Gallagher
- Miss D Plante-Bekenn
- Ms T Whybrow
- Miss J Morrison
- Miss K Ghag
- Miss R Begum
Additional Information
Additional Information
The English department is forward-thinking and innovative in its practice and is constantly striving to enable students to reach their full academic potential in the subject. English is popular amongst students, who enjoy the lessons, the styles of teaching and relish the challenges they are faced with.
The subject is a popular option for Sixth Form students and many have gone on to study English at undergraduate level at universities such as Oxford and Cambridge.
How to improve
- Read, read, read….
- Use the resources of the library; it contains a plethora of texts, whether for background reading/ research purposes or the sheer joy of reading. Mrs Harris can help you with any queries you have.
- Read around the subject, especially if you are GCSE and A level students. The more awareness you have of the context, genre, and literary tradition of the texts you are studying, the greater your understanding of the issues/perspectives of the writers will be. This is also becoming significantly important as the future GCSE in development focuses on a much wider range of texts.
- Write down and learn corrected spellings after each piece of work
- Ask for grammar, spelling or punctuation worksheets for additional support. The department has a lot of resources that are readily available to all students. Please learn how to use apostrophes correctly. From 2015, 20% of the GCSEs will be awarded for correct spelling, punctuation and grammar.
- Be proactive. If you are told that you need to update notes/character profiles/theme grids/plot summaries/tension graphs, etc. make sure you do this on an ongoing basis. All this information will be vital to your success; both in an end of unit assessment but also in order for you to understand texts being studied.
The English Department works closely with an external Literacy Support teacher, Mr Waggott. Mr Waggott supports students with EAL difficulties. If you feel any of these members of staff can provide you with additional support, please discuss it with your subject teacher. Likewise, if your subject teacher has recommended you have support from these members of staff make the most of this opportunity. It is not something to feel embarrassed about; they are all here to maximise your enjoyment and understanding of the subject (and indeed all your written subjects).
How can parents help?
Studies and statistics show that reading is the most beneficial activity to support learning and development across the curriculum. A study by the OECD found that learners that read for up to 30 minutes per day perform significantly beyond their age group, compared with those learners who do not read at all [OECD (2002) Reading for Change: Performance and engagement across countries p.16-17].
The correlation between reading and learning in English is marked, hence why we believe it should be a top priority for students. There are many ways you can support this at home to support:
- Be seen to be reading regularly (this can be any texts: newspapers, articles, novels, journals, plays, poetry);
- Discuss your reading with your children (what have you enjoyed? What have you not enjoyed so much? What other novels/ texts does it remind you of?);
- Take an interest in their reading material- all students are expected to take part in the school’s Reading Challenges, ask them to describe characters, plot, events to you;
- Encourage your daughter to take an interest in current affairs- use this as a stimulus for conversation ( you could use the ‘Agree, Build, Challenge’ mantra which is a good way to engage in a conversation/ debate (there’s a useful Blog post on this style of questioning here: https://www.theconfidentteacher.com/2013/12/disciplined-discussion-easy-abc/)
- Keep a reading journal of your own, model effective behaviours to your child.
- Help them learn complex spellings- you may keep a spelling book at home or test them during a long journey.
If your daughter feels as though she is struggling, there is help available outside of her English lessons. She can book a 121 appointment with her English teacher or seek support from our trained student ambassadors. Here, your daughter can bring her work or anything she is having difficulty with and have one-to-one support with an English teacher or a trained English Assistant.
Where next
English is a versatile subject that is marketable in the majority of career areas. English graduates often go on to careers where communication and effective written English are valued; the subject does offer a plethora of possible career paths. With a qualification in English, you could pursue careers in writing, journalism, publishing, law, teaching, advertising, business, accounting, finance… the list goes on!
Opportunities out of lessons
All department members contribute actively and energetically to the life of the school, for example organising “The Beacon” the school magazine published at the end of the academic year and Junior and Senior Debating societies. The department also runs a Creative Writing Club and IntoFilm Club.
As well as these ongoing activities, we also encourage students to enter external competitions, including the Birmingham Young Poet Laureate and the annual Speak Out competition. Any competitions are advertised on the notice boards in the playroom and Sixth Form Common Room and students are notified by email.
We endeavour to organise evening trips to the theatre when possible and arrange other extra curricular opportunities when they arise.
English opportunities parents can provide
- Theatre trips: this does not necessarily have to be texts we are studying. As we study a range of plays, the experience of seeing any production on stage will be beneficial.
- Adaptations of novels/plays are often televised and can be worth watching. The BBC often has ‘seasons’ on a particular writer, which would also be useful to provide context for your daughter. Examples in the past are Jane Austen, William Shakespeare and Mary Shelley.
- Encouraging your daughter to use the school library as well as a local library.
- Encouraging your daughter to read newspapers and a range of non-fiction texts will be beneficial to enhance their reading/writing skills. It will also make them aware of what is happening around them and the topics that they may need to explore in an examination situation.
- Encouraging your daughter to take part in activities being run in school and to speak to their subject teacher if they have concerns.
- Discussing the texts your daughter is studying with them. It will help your daughter consolidate her knowledge and give her the opportunity to express her opinions on a range of different issues.