English
Exam Board – AQA
Statement of Intent
The LDA English Curriculum intends to inspire young people to value and appreciate the power and beauty of language.
Curriculum Aims
Curriculum intent within the English subject area is founded upon providing pupils with opportunities to gain powerful knowledge and the cultural capital they need to become confident and culturally aware citizens. The English curriculum is designed to develop young people who can value and appreciate the power and beauty of literature and equip them with a broad range of knowledge and skills that will allow them to participate in society beyond the school walls. Exploring a varied range of seminal world literature and exposing pupils to challenging literary heritage texts helps them to understand how art can shape our understanding of the world we live in and effect social and political change.
The study and discussion of high-quality journalism makes our pupils aware that writing can be used to interrogate society as well communicate their ideas and feelings. By writing for a range of purposes, pupils are able to grasp the idea of conventions and varying degrees of formality and find their own mode of expression: providing them with the skills and confidence to articulate their own thoughts and ideas. The curriculum is sequenced to build pupils’ understanding of thought-provoking concepts and increasingly complex ideas, beginning with the reading of texts that explore ideas and issues around childhood through the ages to the more hard-hitting concepts of conflict and protest writing. As pupils mature, the curriculum design ensures that they develop a heightened political awareness and become increasingly discerning in their appreciation of literature.
Curriculum Pathway
Click here to view the English Curriculum Pathway.
Curriculum Model 2022-2023
In KS4 pupils will experience five lessons of English per week; these lessons are divided between English Literature and English Language study.
Overview
| Year 10 In Year 10 pupils begin by being introduced to the vital concept that quality literature presents significant ideas about the human condition, and how these ideas support the reader to develop empathic understanding of human nature. By examining literature texts via a timeline of context, pupils are encouraged to recognise that, although shaped by particular contexts, the texts that they study transcend the time they were written in and speak more broadly about the universality of the human condition. By starting with the earliest text on the timeline, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, pupils are able to explore and appreciate the Jacobean context in which the play was written, whilst also recognising the longevity and relevance of Shakespeare’s ideas and messages. Pupils examine how Shakespeare communicates his ideas about the world through a range of dramatic devices and how an audience might respond to these ideas. Using Shakespeare’s description as inspiration, pupils craft their own description of setting and character with a focus on creating mood, tone and atmosphere. Moving through the timeline of literature to The Romantic poets, pupils continue developing and presenting informed, critical responses to the ideas in literary texts and the poetic methods, including form, structure and figurative language used to present these ideas. They are able to make links between the ideas presented by Shakespeare in the Jacobean era and those presented by a group of poets, connected by their political beliefs, in the early 19th century. The Romantics’ criticism of social and political structures of the time leads seamlessly into pupils’ study of the Victorian novel, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. There is an increasing focus on the ways in which writers reflect the social issues of the context in which they are writing and the powerful way they use methods to influence the world around them. The descriptive techniques honed while studying Macbeth, are now developed into narrative writing with a clear focus on planning plot structure. Journeying through an exploration of key concepts presented by Victorian Poets pupils arrive at their modern play, An Inspector Calls by J B Priestley. Dealing with a play written in one context (post WWII) but set in another (the Edwardian era pre-WWI) offers pupils the opportunity to understand the impact of dramatic irony on the audience. Studying Modern Poetry written about war, power and conflict, supports understanding of Priestley’s criticism of the inequality within society and his rallying cry for progressive future. Inspired by the powerful messages of modern writers, pupils plan, craft, re-draft and present their own speeches about social issues that they feel passionately about. |
Year 11
In Year 11, pupils start with a focus on extracts from creative fiction. They are reminded of the importance of reading any text with a focus on the big ideas that the writer is expressing about the human condition. They are explicitly taught the skills and structure that they need to utilise to successfully interpret, analyse and evaluate writers’ ideas in previously unseen material. Revisiting the creative writing skills developed in Year 10, pupils now become more independent and innovative in their approach to description and narrative. Pupils practise writing at length, in timed conditions, using a range of stimuli. While exploring creative reading and writing, pupils revise previously taught Literature content, Macbeth and A Christmas Carol recalling key knowledge about character, theme, context and writers’ craft, while manipulating this knowledge into developed essay responses. Interleaving Literature and Language knowledge and skills, pupils explore non-fiction extracts written across different eras, with a focus on how writers use a variety of powerful linguistic and structural methods to present their perspectives on a range of topics. Pupils are taught to synthesise and compare ideas and perspectives across texts, dealing with the increasing demands this brings. Practising the conventions of a range of non-fiction genres including letters, articles and speeches ensures that pupils are confident expressing their perspectives in a powerful and meaningful way. Returning to An Inspector Calls and Power and Conflict Anthology while exploring writers’ viewpoints and perspectives, provides further opportunities to draw upon prior knowledge and use this knowledge to plan, write and re-draft critical responses to texts. Pupils are now fully prepared for the demands of the GCSE examination schedule and can spend time on the lead up to these exams, practising responding to exam style questions in tightly controlled conditions so that they can confidently reach their potential.
KS4 Modular Overview
Click here to view the detailed overview of the English curriculum content taught throughout KS4. Each modular overview provides information on the knowledge and skills taught at each stage within the intended curriculum.
Faculty
Mrs F Fletcher: Head of Department, English
Mrs S Venables: Head of Whole School Literacy
Miss A Barry: Responsibility in English
Miss L Morris: Classroom Teacher, English
Miss C Thwaite: SEND Lead/Classroom Teacher, English
Mrs H Grisdale: Classroom Teacher, English
Ms E O’Reilly: Head of Year/ Classroom Teacher, English
Mrs C Phillips: Assistant Headteacher
Mrs C Sergison: Assistant Headteacher
Mrs H Lancaster: Classroom Teacher, English
Mrs J Mullally: Classroom Teacher, English
Mrs J Ashcroft: Classroom Teacher, English
Miss A Kelley: Classroom Teacher, English