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English Curriculum

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English Curriculum

Statement

Subject Intent Statement: What are you trying to achieve within this subject? (Keywords: Knowledge, Literacy, numeracy)

All learners are proficient in literacy: reading, writing, speaking and listening
All learners are able to read at or above their chronological age in order to access the wider curriculum, secure any further education opportunities, if desired, and be able to lead fulfilling lives as global citizens
All learners are able to express themselves articulately in a range of challenging contexts when writing and speaking
All learners are able to read, understand and appreciate a range of challenging fiction and non-fiction texts
All learners are provided with the opportunity to build their ‘cultural capital’ through a range of high quality texts from the literary canon
All learners develop a love for learning and regularly read for pleasure
All learners improve their imagination through the exposure and appreciation of a range of creative texts
All learners improve their spiritual, emotional and cultural well-being through exposure to a range of thought-provoking literary texts
All learners make good or above progress in English Language and Literature GCSEs.

Termly Overview

\|Year 7	Aut 1	Aut 2	Spr 1	Spr 2	Sum 1	Sum 2	Throughout the year
*TOPIC*	Oliver Twistby Charles Dickens	Oliver Twistcontinued	A Midsummer Night’s Dreamby William Shakespeare	A Midsummer Night’s Dreamcontinued	Poetry	Poetry continued and Hear my Voice: Spoken Language	Voices
*KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS TAUGHT*	Life in Victorian London; Victorian crime; the form of a novel; Victorian crime novel; Bill Sikes, Fagin, the Artful Dodger, Oliver; morality. Writing: Composing a topic sentence; the subject; subject / verbagreement; the past simple tense. Fortnightly extended creative writing. Etymology: the journey of the English language. Anglo-Saxon and Viking roots. Influence of Norman conquest. Greek and Latin roots. Prefixes and suffixes.	.	Life in Elizabethan England, life in ancient Athens, and Greek theatre. Shakespeare’s life and times. The four lovers; the love potion;Elizabethan family relationships; the form of a play. Writing: Using evidence; pronoun ambiguity; prepositionalphrases; run-on sentences; punctuating speech;narrative structures. Fortnightly extended creative writing. Etymology: spelling patterns.		Structure and use of metaphor; poets studied include William Blake, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Phoebe Hesketh, Langston Hughes, Richard Kell, Carl Sandberg. Writing: writing about unseen texts using temporal clauses; paragraphing; avoiding fragments. Fortnightly extended creative writing. Etymology: varieties of English, digital communication, slang, accent and dialect.	Non- fiction. Features of persuasive writing.Opinion pieces. Students will be able to develop their non-fiction skills to develop a balanced and detailed argument. Students will build on their spoken language skills by delivering a speech to the class.
*READING FOR PLEASURE*	Myths and Legends: The Odyssey by Homer Greek and Roman myths and legends (as a possibility instead of The Odyssey) Introduction to methods of storytelling, Greek mythology, theatre, and the three unities. Introduction to etymology.	The Odysseycontinued	Myths and Legends: The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien This 20^thCentury myth leads on from reading of the Greek classic tales and will develop the students’ exposure to texts from the English canon. It also supplements themes of legend, morality, and adventure.	The Hobbitcontinued	Myths and Legends: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman Students will read a modern fantasy novel which will strengthen their exposure to this genre. Links will be made to prior books studied for pleasure.	His Dark Materialscontinued.
*ASSESSMENTS*(Minimum one per half term, with focussed marking.)	Baseline testing in Week 1.	Language: Creative Writing taskLiterature essay: How is Bill Sikes presented?	Language: Creative Writing	Literature essay: Is the love potion good or bad?	Literature essay: PoetryHow does the poet describe the om cat?	Non-fiction writing
*HOME LEARNING*	Weekly Writing Challenge. All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Vocabulary learning. Research on Victorian context. Myths and Legends project.	Weekly Writing Challenge. All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Language creative writing practice. Myths and Legends project.	Weekly Writing Challenge. All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Vocabulary learning. Research on Tudor/Jacobean context. Shakespeare’s theatre project.	Weekly Writing Challenge. All pupils have homework booklets. Vocabulary learning. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Shakespeare’s theatre project.	Weekly Writing Challenge. All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Vocabulary learning. Research into key poetry context.	Weekly Writing Challenge. Vocabulary learning. All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Preparation for speaking and listening.
*SEQUENCING* (What must students already have been taught in order to begin to learn this topic? Identify opportunities to address knowledge gaps)	Methods of storytelling from KS2.KS2 knowledge of Victorian period.Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Knowledge learned about Victorian London and Dickens’ context links directly to KS4 study of A Christmas Carol.	KS2 knowledge of Victorian period Knowledge of how to decode older texts.	From Drama lessons, students should understand the essentials of drama performance; interpretations; characterisation.Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Knowledge obtained during Term One will support students’ study of this text, in particular the identification of vulnerable characters, law and punishment, and morality. Understanding of Shakespeare’s context and the format of a play will link directly to KS4 study of Macbeth.	From Drama lessons, students should understand the essentials of drama performance; interpretations; characterisation.Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Key knowledge about essay writing from prior units will be important as students write their first essays analysing a dramatic text.	Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Awareness of literary techniques such as metaphor from prior study of Shakespeare will allow students to recognise and analyse them within the framework of poetry. Awareness of poetic form will ink to KS4 study of conflict poetry. Tennyson’s context will link to COTLB in particular.	Understanding of language techniques from throughout the year.Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Oratory skills will link to KS4 spoken language element and non-fiction writing links directly to KS4 study of Language Paper 2.
*SCHEMAS* (Where might students learn about elements of this topic in other subjects? Which subjects might this topic feed into beyond your own?)	Etymology:History: Autumn 1 Anglo-Saxons and Vikings.History: Autumn 2 Norman Conquest. Literary heritage:Geography: citiesRE: crime and morality		History: Greek society, Elizabethan society, Drama: play scripts, performanceGeography: trip to Stratford in Year 8.
*CAREERS LINKS*(How might this benefit them in the future?)	Building strong literacy and stamina in close reading will help students to become more active and agile readers in their future careers.	Emerging work on specific essay writing skills will help to develop students’ fluency in writing to support a point.	Study of Shakespeare enriches students’ cultural capital and encourages disciplined reading of an unfamiliar text type promoting diligence in decoding language.	In their essay writing, students will learn how to explore and explain concepts and themes within literature. This develops reasoning skills.	Deeper analysis of figurative language encourages students to think creatively about their own words and promotes a richer vocabulary.	Confidence in public speaking. Students are supported in finding their voice, being able to articulate an opinion and to counter arguments that are presented to them in a reasoned way.There will also be opportunities for students to develop a number of clear, transactional writing styles.

Year 8	Aut 1	Aut 2	Spr 1	Spr 2	Sum 1	Sum 2	Throughout the year
*TOPIC*	The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle	The Adventures of Sherlock Holmescontinued	The Tempestby William Shakespeare	The Tempestcontinued	Animal Farmby George Orwell	Animal Farmcontinued	Voices
*KNOWLEDGE and SKILLS TAUGHT*	How are authors influenced by the times that they are living in? Scientific developments in the Victorian era; class andsociety in Victorian England; the detective genre;duality; periodicals; ‘outsiders’. Writing: discourse markers; linking paragraphs; complexsentences; correcting fragments; independent clauses. Fortnightly extended creative writing.		The Elizabethan age of exploration; colonialism;nature / nurture; the form of a comedy; subplots;soliloquy and monologue; Italian city-states. Writing: closed book analysis; composing a balancedargument; subordinate clauses; correcting commasplices. Fortnightly extended creative writing.		How did post war society influence writers? Allegory; Orwell’s life and times; the Russian Revolution;recurring imagery; irony and corruptionContext of 1945-1960: Labour Government, Cold War, Fall of the British Empire and its influence on the novel. Genres of dystopia and allegory. Writing: extended metaphor; writing character;describing settings; Chekhov’s Gun; horror, romance, adventure, fantasy, and poetic justice. Fortnightly extended creative writing.	.	Poetry: EmilyDickinson,Grace Nichols,Ted Hughes,Seamus Heaney. Descriptive Writing. Hear my Voice: Public speaking.
*READING FOR PLEASURE*	The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman. A modern-day version of the detective genre. This encourages students to see how modern writers are influenced by previous literature.	The Ruby in the Smokecontinued.	My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. Continuing the theme of adventure in foreign climes, this book of literary non-fiction will explore the themes of being an outsider.	My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell continued.	The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. 21^st Century dystopian fiction which links to the themes explored in Animal Farm.	The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Continued.
*ASSESSMENTS*	Creative Writing: Writing own detective mystery	What kind of a character is Sherlock Holmes?	Creative Writing: Creation of a dramatic monologue	How is Caliban presented in the extract and the rest of the play?	Dystopian extracts for Language analysis.Creative Writing	How does the farm fail in Animal Farm?
*HOME LEARNING*(To be made available via Century Tech; one per week.)	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Research into detective genre and Victorian context.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Research into Shakespearian comedy and tragedy and tragicomedy.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning.	All pupils have homework booklets. Research into 20^th century historical context: socialism, capitalism, post-war Britain, The Russian Revolution, Soviet Russia. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Preparation for speaking and listening.
*SEQUENCING* (What must students already have been taught in order to begin to learn this topic? Identify opportunities to address knowledge gaps)	Year 7 learning of Victorian context. Crime and poverty in Victorian London.Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Characterisation. Understanding of the detective genre will link to study of the AIC in KS4.	Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Students build towards writing their first discursive essay. They will use the basics of essay writing that they learned in Year 7 as a starting point.	Year 7 knowledge of Shakespeare and his times, features of a play, features of comedy. Knowledge of how to decode older texts. Building knowledge of the dramatic genre will support KS4 study of Macbeth and AIC.	Year 7 knowledge of Shakespeare and his times, features of a play, features of comedy. Knowledge of how to decode older texts.	Knowledge of Victorian authors and how context is important to understanding the novel.Refer back to Victorian authors. Important context for ‘An Inspector Calls’.	Year 7 knowledge of poetic techniques, form, structure. Students build on prior knowledge of essay writing to produce explorative essays, looking at the entirety of a text.
*SCHEMAS* (Where might students learn about elements of this topic in other subjects? Which subjects might this topic feed into beyond your own?)	History: Victorian EnglandRE: crime and morality	History	History: Year 7 life in Tudor England/Age of ExplorationGeography: Year 8 Stratford-upon-Avon trip later on in the year.	History and Drama	Geography: Year 7 RussiaHistory: Students will study the Russian Revolution in Year 9.Geography: Year 8 Conflict	History, Geography, RE, Drama
*CAREERS LINKS*(How might this benefit them in the future?)	Exposure to canonical literature gives students cultural capital. This text introduces students to the idea of deductive thinking.	Continued development of specific essay writing skills encourages students to think analytically and to present their written ideas in an increasingly sophisticated way.	Study of Shakespeare enriches students’ cultural capital and encourages disciplined reading of an unfamiliar text type promoting diligence in decoding language. Students are also encouraged to develop their own opinion about characters and themes, such as colonialism.	Continued development of specific essay writing skills encourages students to write about dramatic texts in terms of both broad themes and close detail, developing their manipulation of language and reasoning.	Understanding of political issues of 20^thCentury to inform understanding of political ideologies. Students are introduced to the idea of writers having political intentions which helps them to identify bias in texts.	Students learn to link evidence and build a case to prove a hypothesis.

Year 9	Aut 1	Aut 2	Spr 1	Spr 2	Sum 1	Sum 2	Throughout the year
*TOPIC*	Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë	Jane Eyrecontinued	Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare	Romeo and Julietcontinued	Poetry Anthology	Poetry Anthology continued	Voices
*KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS TAUGHT*	Victorian ‘respectability’; Victorian attitudes towards children and childhood; rural isolation; Christianity; Victorian sickness; juxtaposition in Jane Eyre. Victorian non-fiction texts. Fortnightly extended creative writing. Writing: apostrophe of omission; the apostrophe; past perfect continuous; countable and unaccountable nouns; future perfect and simple.		The Prologue; foreshadowing in Romeo and Juliet; theform of a tragedy; AC Bradley’s lectures onShakespearean character; the sonnet form. Fortnightly extended creative writing. Writing: Sustaining a thesis; structuring a thesis; future perfect continuous; defining relative clauses; non-defining relative clauses.		Extended metaphors; ‘Paradise Lost’, ‘The Road NotTaken’, ‘Night Mail’, ‘The Canterbury Tales’; lives ofMilton, Chaucer, Auden, Grace Nichols, Wallace Willis. Fortnightly extended creative writing. Writing: Comparing texts; chronological and non-chronologicalcomposition; thesis andantithesis; 2^ndconditional; 3^rd Spoken Language		19^th and 21^stcentury non-fiction texts; editorials, travel writing, and letters. Reading for pleasure.
*READING FOR PLEASURE*	Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah Literary non-fiction looking at a different society’s expectations of girls. This links to expectations and portrayals of women within the novel.	Chinese Cinderella continued.	Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman Modern fiction which explores love and the divisions in a dystopian society with themes of racial and social inequality.	Noughts and Crossescontinued.	Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Continuing the themes of the outsider, racism, treatment of women and social injustice.	Of Mice and Men continued.
*ASSESSMENTS*	Diary writing from the perspective of a character.	Explore the way Brontë presents Jane’s childhood experiences.	Creative writing.	How does Shakespeare present Juliet as a tragic hero?	Creative Writing: pupils write their own poem.	Compare the ways poets present a theme in two poems.
*HOME LEARNING*(To be made available via Century Tech; one per week.)	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Research into Victorian context. Use of PLCs to ensure that students are ‘GCSE ready’. Weekly information retrieval tests.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Use of PLCs to ensure that students are ‘GCSE ready’. Weekly information retrieval tests.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Research into Shakespeare’s use of dramatic devices. Use of PLCs to ensure that students are ‘GCSE ready’. Weekly information retrieval tests.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Use of PLCs to ensure that students are ‘GCSE ready’. Weekly information retrieval tests.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Use of PLCs to ensure that students are ‘GCSE ready’. Weekly information retrieval tests.	All pupils have homework booklets. Students will use GCSE Pod to revisit learning. Use of PLCs to ensure that students are ‘GCSE ready’. Weekly information retrieval tests.
*SEQUENCING* (What must students already have been taught in order to begin to learn this topic? Identify opportunities to address knowledge gaps)	Year 7 and Year 8 knowledge of Victorian literature/life and times in 19^th Century Britain. Treatment of women in literature (Nancy in Oliver Twist, Hermia in AMND). This will link directly to KS4 study of the character of Eva Smith and the themes of social class in AIC. It also encourages students to think about gender rules which will link to KS4 study of Macbeth.	Year 7 and Year 8 knowledge of Victorian literature/life and times in 19th Century Britain. Building on essay writing skills to produce more explorative analytical essays.	Year 7 and 8 knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays, life, and times. Characterisation in dramatic texts. This will broadly link to the themes of conflict at KS4.	Year 7 and 8 knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays, life, and times. Treatment of women in literature (Y7, 8 and 9).	Year 7 and 8 knowledge of poetic form, language, and structure. Study of Romantic poetry directly links to KS4 study of Power and Conflict poems such as Ozymandias and Extract from The Prelude.	Year 7 and 8 knowledge of poetic form, language, and structure. The structuring and crafting of poetry analysis will be used at KS4.
*SCHEMAS* (Where might students learn about elements of this topic in other subjects? Which subjects might this topic feed into beyond your own?)	History: Year 8 industrial revolution and life in 19^thCentury Britain.	History	History and Drama	History and Drama	History	History
*CAREERS LINKS*(How might this benefit them in the future?)	Exposure to canonical literature gives students cultural capital. This text introduces students to the issues surrounding class and social inequality.	Students are encouraged to write with links to context demonstrating a broader and deeper understanding of the reasons why texts were written.	Study of Shakespeare enriches students’ cultural capital and encourages disciplined reading of an unfamiliar text type promoting diligence in decoding language.	Continued development of specific essay writing skills encourages students to write about dramatic texts in terms of both broad themes and close detail, developing their manipulation of language and reasoning.	Knowledge of the English poetic canon enriches students’ cultural capital and gives them vital knowledge of the way that societies valued literature and free thought.	Close reading of poetry encourages students to think figuratively and to search for additional meanings. Writing at this stage will be developing to deal with broader world themes.

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