Intent
Our English curriculum is designed to inspire a love of literature and language while fostering critical thinking, empathy, and effective communication. By exploring the theme of power across a carefully curated selection of texts, students engage with diverse perspectives, develop cultural awareness, and build a deeper understanding of human nature. The curriculum is intentionally spiral in its design, revisiting key ideas and skills at increasing levels of complexity as students progress through their academic journey.
The spiral curriculum underpins our approach to teaching English, ensuring that core skills and concepts are revisited and reinforced over time. This structure allows students to deepen their understanding of literary analysis, critical evaluation, and academic writing as they encounter progressively challenging texts. By revisiting the theme of power in various contexts—historical, cultural, and personal—students gain a multifaceted perspective and refine their ability to analyse and articulate complex ideas.
Theme of Power Across Selected Texts
The theme of power serves as a lens through which students examine the dynamics of society and the world around them. Texts are carefully chosen to reflect diverse genres, historical periods, and cultural backgrounds, offering students a comprehensive exploration of power’s manifestations and consequences.
Curriculum Outcomes
By engaging with the theme of power through a spiral curriculum, students will:
- Develop a nuanced understanding of how power shapes human experiences and societal structures.
- Gain critical skills to analyse and critique texts across genres and contexts.
- Build confidence in articulating their insights through spoken and written expression.
- Cultivate empathy and global awareness by connecting literary themes to real-world issues.
Our dynamic and interconnected curriculum ensures that students leave with a robust understanding of literature, language, and their relevance in shaping the world around them.
The Curriculum
Key Stage 3
At Key Stage 3, the department follows the strands and standards of the new National Curriculum; embedded within this is a strong focus on reading and the development of a broad and sophisticated vocabulary. The curriculum includes the study of a range of high-quality texts that help students develop their familiarity with and understanding of the development of the literary canon. Studying a range of challenging texts, from Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale to modern writers such as George Orwell and Patience Agbabi, pupils are encouraged to explore how writers create meaning and to harness these techniques to become critical thinkers and develop their own individual voices. Lessons and units are knowledge and vocabulary rich so that pupils build upon what they already know to develop powerful knowledge. We have also adopted a literacy program within Year 7 and 8 which aims to accelerate reading standards and improve the reading levels of our students across Key Stage 3.
Key Stage 4
Our students follow the AQA programme of study at GCSE. They will undertake two GCSEs: GCSE English Language and GCSE English Literature. All assessments are now linear with a programme of study over two years which culminates in exams at the end of Year 11. Students explore a range of challenging fiction and non-fiction texts including Romeo and Juliet, An Inspector Calls and A Christmas Carol as well as a range of thematically linked poetry from 1789 to the present day.
Key Stage 5
We follow the Edexcel syllabus at Key Stage 5 for A Level English Literature. This involves the study of a variety of prose, poetry and drama. The curriculum is designed to enable students to develop the following skills:
- to read widely and independently set texts and others that they have selected for themselves;
- to engage critically and creatively with a substantial body of texts and ways of responding to them;
- to develop and effectively apply their knowledge of literary analysis and evaluation;
- to explore the contexts of the texts they are reading and others’ interpretations of them;
- to undertake independent and sustained studies to deepen their appreciation and understanding of English literature, including its changing traditions.
Lessons cater to a range of learning styles and include a mix of whole class, small group and independent activities.
Curriculum Maps
Staff
Mr A Canham – Subject Leader
Mrs E Tomlinson
Mr K Stevens
Miss E Taylor
Ms A Pickup
Mrs C Hewerdine
Mr D Harris
