English

Rationale | Core Knowledge | Key Stage Overview | Resources

Four Core Principles – The Foundation of our English Curriculum

“I take pleasure in reading with confidence, knowing it helps to build knowledge”

• Appreciate and comprehend a range of fiction and non-fiction texts.
• Evaluate the methods a writer uses to convey meaning, create subtle effects and establish tone.
• An understanding of how genre and style inform a piece of writing.

“I enjoy the freedom I gain in expressing myself fluently and creatively”

• Express themselves with accuracy and clarity.
• Employ language and structure in an imaginative, precise and nuanced way.
• Employ discourse appropriate to my own purpose and intention.

“I enrich my cultural understanding of the world around me through books”

• Engage with the complex themes expressed in English literature across time.
• Connect the ideas expressed in texts with their social, political and cultural contexts.
• Select evidence to support a point of view judiciously.

“I think critically but empathetically when I explore a unique point of view”

• An appreciation of the diversity of experiences and perspectives that can be conveyed through texts.
• Students offer personal responses to the ideas expressed in texts.
• Students recognise the need to approach texts critically

English at Riddlesdown - A Rationale

Visiting and Revisiting Themes and Concepts

Although the range of ideas that writers explore is vast, our curriculum selections return to the same core concepts from Year 7 to year 13. This allows students to build and develop vocabulary, knowledge and confidence in specific areas of knowledge over time. For example, the way in which they might learn to discuss Shakespeare’s theatrical choices in Year 7 when they study “The Tempest” will be enhanced over the years until they are able to profoundly explore the stagecraft and dramaturgy of the playwright when they look at “Othello” in Year 13. Also, key language (such as “absolution” or “redemption”) introduced at this stage will be revisited and enhanced in later years, allowing students to explore and express concepts with confidence. The four umbrella themes we use are detailed in the “Central Themes” section in this document.

Building and Developing Core Skills

Students’ ability to express themselves well in speaking and writing as well as fully grasping the meaning of what they read and hear is at the cornerstone of the English curriculum. The basic skills are outlined in the ‘core knowledge’ section in this document. Each unit of work will focus and build on a specific selection and range of these, allowing students better mastery over time. Each English lesson within that unit must clearly help students to build a more secure understanding or facility with that core skill. For each unit of work, students have an accompanying booklet which lists the core skills being addressed. There are also opportunities in the booklet for students to reflectively assess themselves against these objectives. This will help students, teachers and parents to be clear about what personal targets each individual learner should prioritise.

Expanding Cultural Knowledge and Appreciation

The nature of English as a subject – with its focus on the human condition and how the individual negotiates their private world within the socio-political context they inhabit – gives English teachers the welcome responsibility to support a young person’s social and emotional well-being. It is important therefore that the subject go well beyond core literacy skills to facilitate how a child gains a breadth of cultural awareness and a genuine facility for deep critical thinking. Our curriculum aims to help students master core skills but offer real scope in terms of content.

Core Knowledge

Reading

Decoding a Text

1. A broad knowledge of higher tier vocabulary.
2. Using context to understand specific vocabulary more precisely.
3. The ability to evaluate, scan or skim a text to garner its general meaning and relevance.
4. To read aloud with fluency and intention – recognising how punctuation influences tone and intention.
5. Use a combination of scanning and close reading to locate information.
6. Use knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes to investigate how the meanings of words change e.g. un+happy+ness
7. Develop a culture of reading for pleasure.

Interpreting a Text

8. Being able to make inferences.
9. Recognising subtleties of tone.
10. Understand the structures writers use to achieve coherence (headings; links within and between paragraphs; connectives).
11. Make sense of cause and effect, sequencing, or logic across a whole text; being able to make cross-references.
12. Recognising the impact genre, style, tropes, conventions, purpose, and audience have on understanding a text.
13. Being able to summarise or precis a text.
14. Applying general cultural knowledge to understanding a text.

Analysing a Text

15. Identifying figurative tropes and other linguistic devices appropriate to genre and evaluate how these choices communicate meaning and attitude.
16. Identifying word types and grammatical constructions and evaluate how these choices communicate meaning and attitude.
17. Identifying the structural choices made by the writer and evaluate how these choices communicate meaning and attitude.
18. Recognise and evaluate how the writer uses the elements or conventions of their genre in specific ways. For example, characters in a novel, or the use of a narrative voice, or anecdotes in an editorial or humour in a real-life account.
19. Making comparisons across and between texts.
20. Interpreting literature through the lens of its relationship to the social and cultural reality depicted.
21. Interpreting literature through the lens of its relationship to the social and cultural reality in which texts are created and enjoyed.
22. Writing about a Text
23. Knowing how to embed a reference effectively.
24. Ability to develop and sustain an argument (how to structure a longer response that answers the question).

Writing

Language and Content
1. Employ a range of poetic or figurative devices to make writing more evocative, imaginative and engaging.
2. Employ a range of rhetorical devices to make expression more emphatic, precise and convincing.
3. Using high tier vocabulary with precision.
4. Having a clear and developed idea that is thoroughly explicated.
5. Structure and Logic
6. Employ paragraphs or other ordering devices (e.g. sub-headings) to organise writing.
7. Using paragraphs or structure to enhance creative or imaginative intentions (e.g. withholding information for suspense or digressing to supress pace).
8. Use topic sentences to support the reader’s understanding and develop an argument.
9. Use marking phrases and conjunctions deliberately to link ideas and guide the reader.

Style
10. Making clear choices about ‘voice’ and tone. For example, deliberately choosing a narrative perspective that best suits the purpose of a piece of writing.
11. Recognising how the form or purpose of a text requires deliberate uses of language. For example, a formal letter has a different quality or register to a broadsheet editorial,
12. Manipulate tropes and conventions according to genre or purpose. For example, a fictional story requires characterisation of careful crafted dialogue, or travel writing requires flair with description.

Technical Accuracy and Grammar
13. Use a range of strategies in order to spell correctly.
14. Use basic punctuation to control sentences accurately.
15. Use a full range of punctuation to communicate with intention and subtlety.
16. Using tenses consistently and with purpose.
17. Ensure correct use of Standard English, especially in terms of verb-noun agreement.
18. Employ a full range of sentence constructions to communicate with intention and subtlety. For example, using adverbial clauses successfully, using the passive voice, beginning sentences with the present participle.

Editing and Re-Writing
19. Learning how to proof-read.
20. Knowing when and how to make alterations to a piece of writing in a purposeful way.
21. Having clear methods to plan a piece of writing.

Central Themes

Embracing Difference and Diversity

a. Tackling prejudice and marginalisation
b. Representing the experience of the ‘other’
c. Celebrating individuality
d. Compassion, integrity and grace

Social Injustice, Cultural Conflict

a. Britain’s class war
b. Gender roles and stereotypes
c. Identity politics and power
d. Reassessing the past

Our Shadow Self / The Darker Side of Human Nature

a. Fear and fantasy
b. Primal instincts
c. Morals and ethics
d. Humanity’s dual nature

Family, Fidelity, Friendship

a. Different attitudes to love in literature
b. The relationship between children and their parents
c. The pain of betrayal
d. Demonstrating true friendship

A Complete Overview of the Journey from KS3 to KS5

Literature and Language are taught concurrently to students in the lower school. At the end of Year 11, students sit two GCSEs with the AQA exam board: English Language and English Literature. In College VI, students follow a two-year A-level that works towards the AQA qualification ‘English Literature A’.

A thematic approach is taken to English in every key stage so that students become familiar with challenging literature in a way that allows them to simultaneously develop their reading and writing skills, broaden their cultural appreciation, hone their faculty for critical engagement with language and become fluent at expressing themselves clearly and convincingly.

English at KS3

Autumn Term – Using a primary literary text as the key source, students explore important socio-political themes. They will learn to understand texts within their cultural contexts and begin to understand how to structure analytical and interpretative responses. There is an emphasis on their own ability to manipulate vocabulary and linguistic methods in their own writing to create tone or communicate theme.

Year 7 – Gothic Ghouls and Monsters (“Frankenstein: A play” by Philip Pulman)

Year 8 – Difference and Diversity (“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon)

Year 9 – Can You Share a Dream? (“Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck)

Spring Term – With a focus on Shakespeare, students will be asked to persevere with the challenges presented by typical examples of literature from the English literary tradition but will also look at other non-fiction texts that reveal how the themes of these great plays resonates in our own time. This will allow students to employ and develop many core reading and writing skills.

Year 7 – The Power of Redemption (“The Tempest”)

Year 8 – Blood, Guts and Gore (“Macbeth”)

Year 9 – What Makes a Man? (“The Merchant of Venice”)

Summer Term – A broader approach is taken to allow teachers the opportunity to develop core skills particular to their groups. A broad selection of texts is used to achieve this, with a focus on poetry (expect for Year 9 who explore a novel to consolidate reading skills in preparation for GCSE).

Year 7 – Travelling the Globe (poetry from other cultures and travel writing)

Year 8 – Our English Heritage (anthology of poetry and short fiction that traces the development of English Literature)

Year 9 – Clashes and Collisions (“Lord of the Flies”)

English at KS4

Year 10 (September to February) – Our World in Crisis (social conflict, displacement, power, inequality)

Students will be introduced to all the skills they will be expected to demonstrate in the GCSE public examinations. They will also be expected to complete the speaking component of their qualification: a prepared speech on a topic of their choice. Students will complete studying one of the three key texts: “An Inspector Calls”. They will also be introduced to the “GCSE Poetry Anthology: Power and Conflict” from which they will study five of the required works.

Year 10 (March to July) – The Human Heart (love, family, home, loss)

Students will improve on all the key reading and writing skills necessary to succeed in the Year 10 pre-public examinations (PPE) held at the end of the academic year where they will sit a full mock of both of the English Language exams and the second of the English Literature exams. The key text taught in this period will be Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and another five poems from the anthology will be studied.

Year 11 (September to February) – Our Shadow Side (corruption, good vs evil, morality, guilt, violence)

With an emphasis on more challenging content, students will need to master the full range of skills they will be expected to demonstrate in their final exams. At key moments in the school calendar, they will have the opportunity to complete mock exams. They will study the last five poems in their anthology and either Stevenson’s “Jekyll and Hyde” or Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.

Year 11 (March to May) – Revision

Reacting to student outcomes in the mock exams, teachers will focus on the key skills and areas of knowledge that will help students fulfil their potential in the public examinations.

English at KS5

A rich and diverse range of literature offers the prospect of exploring a variety of novels, poetry and plays written from the 16th Century to the present day – two of which students are free to choose for themselves. English Literature in the sixth form builds on the foundations of the curriculum in the lower school and aims to develop a range of key skills: perceptive analysis of the way in which writers craft texts; fluent communication of personal insights; adept assimilation and synthesis of ideas from a wide range of sources, deep critical thinking.

Students sit two papers at the end of their final year; the theme of each is examined through three set texts:

Love Through the Ages – “The Great Gatsby”, Anthology of pre-1900 poetry, “Othello”

Texts in Modern Times – “The Handmaid’s Tale”, “Skirrid Hill”, “A Streetcar Named Desire”

Students must also submit a 2500-word essay in their first year where they compare two texts of their choice which they have studied independently.

It is important that students do not just understand their small selection of set texts but are able to consider how these texts are examples of the wealth of this field. They must be able to apply their knowledge and critical thinking to any literary texts, including many they may not have been asked to study.