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English

Curriculum and Staffing

Introduction

In the English department we believe in the power of storytelling to enrich our students’ lives and shape their understanding of the diverse, challenging and ever-changing world they live in. Not only do English lessons allow students insights into other cultures, enabling them to discover new ways of seeing the world, but they are given the opportunity for creativity, self-expression and personal development too. We encourage our students to be inquisitive and explore how the written word can enable them to communicate effectively and appropriately in a range of environments and discourses. The study of English helps to create global citizens who are able to communicate with one another passionately and empathetically. We aim to instil a love of literature so that our students become lifelong readers and critical thinkers beyond their formal studies.

Years 7, 8 and 9

Our Key Stage Three curriculum is both challenging and rich in knowledge. Our curriculum offers students the opportunity to master and develop essential skills whilst enjoying a variety of texts and forms. Each unit is either skills based (reading, writing or oracy) or knowledge based. Students in years 7,8 and 9 will study the following each year:

Poetry
Creative writing (fiction)
Creative writing (non-fiction)
Shakespeare
A novel

For homework, weekly spellings are set based on the unit of work that students are studying and these are set on Satchel One for them to learn at home. In addition to this, we focus on developing vocabulary and we use a fantastic platform called ‘Bedrock Vocabulary’ where students can learn and be tested on new vocabulary each week.

Key Stage 3 Recommended Reading Lists

Years 10 & 11

English Language and English Literature are compulsory for all students. Both are assessed completely by examination, which take place at the end of Year 11. There is an additional qualification in Spoken Language, which requires students to present and answer questions on a topic of their choice. The GCSE Language course is entirely skills based; students have to apply reading and writing skills to unseen tasks in their exams. In GCSE Literature, students will study three texts and a collection of poetry and need to know these in detail before their exams. They will also be asked to approach unseen poems and write about their own personal responses to these. The course is varied, we study texts from a wide variety of writers and contexts.

The specifications can be accessed here:
http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-language-8700
http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-literature-8702

Key Stage 4 Recommended Reading Lists

Careers & Future Study

Studying English is superb preparation for many careers and degrees such as Law, History, Marketing, Business, Politics, Journalism, Advertising, Publishing and many, many more.

Sixth Form

English Language and English Literature are both popular options at A level. We offer both subjects at Waingels with AQA as our exam board.

English Language A Level (AQA):
In this course, the students will study many different aspects of language, ranging from the language used by different social groups to the development of language in young children. The first section of the A level exam requires a close reading of texts and an exploration of the different aspects of language used; there is also an assessment of a student’s writing skills. There are two Non Examined Assessments on this course. The first requires students to produce a personal investigation in to any aspect of language that interests them, collecting and analysing their own personal data. The second piece is a creative writing task.http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-language-7701-7702

English Language Reading List

English Literature A Level (AQA Specification B):
Students on this course study a variety of texts (poetry, prose and drama) through the lens of a particular genre. For Paper 1, they will explore texts that could be considered tragedies. In the second year of the course, students consider elements of texts that are considered Political and Social Protest writing. In their Non Examined Assessments, students apply their knowledge of literary criticism to the poetry and novels of their choice.
http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-literature-b-7716-7717

Extra Curricular Opportunities