Welcome to the English Department

english department Curriculum Intent and Vision:

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
- Maya Angelou
 
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” 
― Albert Einstein

The English Curriculum is designed to give students a broad experience of a wide range of challenging literature (thematically and technically) which is woven together through Schemes of Learning which have been designed to be thematic in their focus and which take an intertextual approach.  Embedded into our Schemes of Learning across both Key Stages 3 and 4 are the key skills required for the four different GCSE exams.  These skills have been scaffolded so that they develop progression of the key requirements in relation to the topics and texts being covered. 

Our Vision

Our vision for English is that, by placing culture and curiosity as well as learning at the centre of everything we do, we continually reflect upon the world that we live in and the place that English Language & Literature have in our world, as well as reflecting upon developing our own practice and seeking opportunities to enhance teaching and learning.

Our purpose is to inspire and motivate students, fostering a love of all things English and broadening and enriching their minds and hearts.  We want to cultivate critical thinkers for life who can see the relevance of English Language and Literature in relation to their lives.  We aim for our curriculum to be one which empowers students, creates opportunities for them and enables them to see themselves, in relation to the world around them, as global citizens and to be ‘better people’.

We deliver a varied, culturally diverse and creative curriculum, allowing all students the opportunities to flourish. Through the teaching of transferrable skills and strategies, we enable students to achieve in our subject and others, as well as in their lives beyond school.

We aim to empower our students to become effective independent learners through supportive, skills-based feedback and next steps, swift interventions, and responsive teaching which, together, develop students’ skills and challenge them to aspire beyond their expected progress.

Our principles behind our approach to English lessons:

We want to:

• Take an ‘intertextual’ approach to English, encouraging students to make links between different styles and types of texts which have been written and used across different periods of time, reflecting changing attitudes, a range of purposes and different audiences.
• Take a multi-modal approach to learning so that students maximise their use of ICT facilities available, such as the Google Classroom, Google Docs, Jamboards (moving towards use of MS265, MSTeams, etc), Show My Homework / SatchelOne & Kahoot, as well as using (and creating) moving images, dramatic performances, pictures and photographs alongside written texts.
• Be responsive and adaptive in our teaching so that we swiftly intervene to address misconceptions and personalise the learning to our students' needs.
• Encourage students to be able to use transferable skills: skills that can be utilised, reinforced and remembered in other lessons across the curriculum.
• Enrich students’ experience of English, providing challenge for all as well as fostering their love of learning and giving them literacy skills which they can use throughout their lives.
• Provide a clear sense of purpose to tasks, making them ‘real’ and relevant to their everyday lives and, thus, supporting the ‘stickability’ of what they are learning.
• Encourage students to take ownership of their own learning through their response to feedback, therefore building confidence, independence and resilience as learners.

Curriculum

KS3

This year you will study three themes: War and Refuge, Nature and Wildlife, and Love and Conflict.  Within each theme, you will have the chance to read lots of different types of texts and try your hand at writing in different styles. You will also discuss and debate your ideas around the themes as a class and in groups.

In Year 7, you will study…

KS4

This year you will study three themes: America’s Dreams; Guilt, Memory and Reality; and Victims and Villains. Within each theme, you will have the chance to read lots of different types of texts and try your hand at writing in different styles. You will begin to compare texts from different times and different types of character experiences, for example different villains throughout literature.  You will also discuss and debate your ideas around the themes as a class and in groups, learning about different parts of British and world history and culture, and how these apply to the key themes.

In Year 8, you will study…

Details of the cross curricular links with Humanities can be found below.

Cross Curricular links with Humanities