English Curriculum
Vision
We believe every young person has the right to a high-quality English education, rooted in the highest quality literature, and that the knowledge they learn through English prepares them fully for their academic, emotional and social futures.
Our carefully chosen literature, building from pre-complex to challenging and seminal, is at the centre of the curriculum, seeking to represent the best of the discipline: novels, short stories, extracts from fiction and literary non-fiction, poetry and drama that speak to the human condition and celebrate its incredible diversity by ensuring engagement with a range of identities, cultures, viewpoints and concerns, spanning the literary timeline.
Through the study of this literature, we teach our pupils about those who are different to us; developing the qualities of empathy, enquiry and understanding.
We teach our pupils how to express themselves academically and to critically question what they read so that they have the skills to navigate the competitive and complex world beyond school in their written and verbal communication. As a result, pupils are confident in themselves as creators, as well as consumers, of language and literature.
Our curriculum aims to meaningfully enrich the lives of our pupils, fostering a love of literature and the English language.
Programmes of Study
|
Year 7 The foundations of English |
Unit 1 |
Unit 2 |
Unit 3 |
Unit 4 |
|||
| Origins of story: Mythology |
Ways of reading story: pre-complex novels
Core texts: ‘Lark’ by Anthony McGowan & ‘The Bone Sparrow’ by Zana Fraillon (12 weeks) |
Poetry: epics & legends
Core texts: ‘Beowulf’, versions by Seamus Heaney & Maria Davhana Headley & ‘Sir Gawain & the Green Knight’, version by Simon Armitage (10 weeks)
|
Drama: comedy
Core text: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (8 weeks) |
||||
|
Year 8 Relationships across English |
Unit 1 |
Unit 2 |
Unit 3 |
Unit 4 |
|||
| The 19th century novel |
The Gothic
Core text: anthology of Gothic literature (8 weeks) |
Poetry: conflict
Core text: anthology of conflict poetry (7 weeks) |
Conflict in Literature
Core texts: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare & ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller (14 weeks) |
||||
|
Year 9 Bringing English into the world |
Unit 1 |
Unit 2 |
Unit 3 |
GCSE Unit 1 |
|||
| Black American Literature & Rhetoric |
Dystopia
Core text: anthology of dystopian literature, including ‘1984’ by George Orwell. (8 weeks) |
Tragedy
Core texts: ‘Othello’ by William Shakespeare & ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe (14 weeks) |
GCSE War poetry |
||||
|
Year 10 AQA GCSE English Language & English Literature |
GCSE Unit 2 |
GCSE Unit 3 |
GCSE Unit 4 |
GCSE Unit 5 |
GCSE Unit 6 |
||
|
‘An Inspector Calls’ by J.B. Priestley & GCSE English Language (9 weeks) |
Poetry – Heritage poems (3 weeks) |
‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare & GCSE English Language (9 weeks) |
Poetry – Identity poems (3 weeks) |
‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde’ by Robert Louis Stevenson & GCSE English Language (9 weeks) |
|||
|
Year 11 Revision & mastery |
Revision for MY Summatives GCSE English Literature Paper 2 GCSE English Language Paper 1 |
Revision for EY Summatives GCSE English Literature Paper 1 GCSE English Language Paper 2 |
Revision for final GCSE exams |
||||
|
Year 12 OCR A-Level English Literature |
A-Level Unit 1 – The Gothic |
A-Level Unit 2 – Drama & Poetry pre-1900 |
A-Level Unit 3A - Coursework |
||||
|
Introduction to the Gothic
‘The Bloody Chamber & other stories’ by Angela Carter |
‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley |
‘Hamlet’ by William Shakespeare |
‘The Duchess of Malfi’ by John Webster |
The poetry of Christina Rossetti |
Post-colonial literature
Core texts: ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ by Lorriane Hansberry & ‘Homegoing’ by Yaa Gyasi |
||
|
Year 13 Revision & mastery |
A-Level Unit 3B - Coursework |
Revision for MY Summative A-Level English Literature Paper 2 (The Gothic) |
Revision for EY Summative A-Level English Literature Paper 1 (Drama & Poetry pre-1900) |
Revision for final A-Level exams |
|||
|
Poetry close-reading The War Poems by Wilfred Owen |
|||||||
