English
Directors of Learning design sequences of lessons which combine with our Personal Development Programme delivered by Form Tutors. These closely align with our mission to ‘Teach What Matters’, a deliberate approach to ensure we address challenges that our students are likely to face and to give them the best possible chance of meeting their limitless potential.
We want all Holyhead students to be able to;
- Solve problems
- Apply knowledge to the real world
- Adapt to change and be resilient to failure
- Be aware of their own thought processes and memory (meta cognition)
- Be articulate and express themselves
- Think critically
We want all students at Holyhead to be strong in relation to the following attributes;
- Leadership
- Organisation
- Resilience
- Initiative
- Communication
We also want them to recognise the best of human thinking and appreciate the fundamental British Values.
Mr P Rafter
Director of Learning
Mrs N Malhi- Soggi
Assistant Director of Learning
Mr G Shaw
Assistant Director of Learning
The English curriculum is about personal growth, cultural enrichment and opportunities to participate in gritty debate. We believe our learners are not bound by any limitations on how they develop their sense of civic duty and English endeavours to serve this development. English enables learners to engage with the world around them through exploration, analysis and criticism. The English Faculty at Holyhead uses this perspective to develop student’s own view of the world through a range of multimodal texts and the Literary canon. We aim to present our students with a diverse range of authorial voices that represents the demographic of Handsworth, while keeping in line with the National Curriculum. We aspire to enable individual voice in a multifaceted world where morality and ethics are debated and scrutinised, thus developing the ethical mind and the moral character of every learner at Holyhead School. Holyhead English serves the local community in this way to ensure that the future of the local community is bright, ambitious and progressive.
Learners will be able to:
The English curriculum at Holyhead is designed to support students to:
- read with comprehension, fluently and with developed inference
- develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
- acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage
- write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style in and for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences
- use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas
- become competent and articulate in the arts of speaking and listening, making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in debate.
- be cognizant of wider issues and hold healthy curiousity and awareness of the positive role they can play in wider societal issues.
- hold progressive values and demonstrate empathy towards people of all protected characteristics
What are the key skills of a linguist and literary critic?
English Literature
- Sustain a convincing, informed personal response to explicit and implicit meanings of texts
- Sustain a perceptive critical analysis of the ways in which writers use language, form and structure
- Use judicious and well-integrated textual references to develop personal responses
- Show perceptive understanding of how contexts shape texts and responses to texts
- Make illuminating comparisons between texts.
- Use multimodal texts to learn about what matters to them and shape their worldview through discussion and reason
- Judicious use of literary terminology and wider contextual analysis
English Language
Reading
- Summarise and critically evaluate with detailed and perceptive understanding
- Understand and respond with insight to explicit and implicit meanings and viewpoints
- Analyse and critically evaluate, with insight, detailed aspects of language, grammar and structure
- Substantiate their understanding and opinions with illuminating references to texts and contexts
- Make convincing and apt links and comparisons within and between texts.
Writing
- Communicate with impact and influence
- Produce ambitious, accomplished and effectively-structured texts
- Use a wide range of well-selected sentence types and structures and precise vocabulary to enhance impact
- Spell, punctuate and use grammar accurately so that writing is virtually error-free.
Key Stage 3
Overview of the KS3 Curriculum:
| Knowledge | Attributes/Characters | Skills | Experiences | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 7 |
|
|
Reading:
Writing:
|
|
||
| Year 8 |
We also have a range of class readers that are taught and read through once a week. Students could read any of the following:
|
|
|
|
||
| Year 9 |
|
|
|
|
What are the fundamental principles and concepts that students need to acquire in order to progress successfully through the curriculum in KS3 English?
- Students develop an appreciation and love of reading, and read increasingly challenging material independently through a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, including in particular whole books, short stories, poems and plays with a wide coverage of genres, historical periods, forms and authors. The range will include high-quality works from:
- English literature, both pre-1914 and contemporary, including prose, poetry and drama
- Shakespeare (two plays)
- seminal world literature
- choosing and reading books independently for challenge, interest and enjoyment.
- re-reading books encountered earlier to increase familiarity with them and provide a basis for making comparisons.
Understand increasingly challenging texts through:
- learning new vocabulary, relating it explicitly to known vocabulary and understanding it with the help of context and dictionaries
- making inferences and referring to evidence in the text
- knowing the purpose, audience for and context of the writing and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension
- checking their understanding to make sure that what they have read makes sense.
Read critically through:
- knowing how language, including figurative language, vocabulary choice, grammar, text structure and organisational features, presents meaning
- recognising a range of poetic conventions and understanding how these have been used
- studying setting, plot, and characterisation, and the effects of these
- understanding how the work of dramatists is communicated effectively through performance and how alternative staging allows for different interpretations of a play
- making critical comparisons across texts
- studying a range of authors, including at least two authors in depth each year.
Students will be taught to write accurately, fluently, effectively and at length for pleasure and information through writing for a wide range of purposes and audiences, including:
- well-structured formal expository and narrative essays
- stories, scripts, poetry and other imaginative writing
- notes and polished scripts for talks and presentations
- a range of other narrative and non-narrative texts, including arguments, and personal and formal letters
- summarising and organising material, and supporting ideas and arguments with any necessary factual detail
- applying their growing knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and text structure to their writing and selecting the appropriate form
- drawing on knowledge of literary and rhetorical devices from their reading and listening to enhance the impact of their writing
- plan, draft, edit and proof-read through:
- considering how their writing reflects the audiences and purposes for which it was intended
- amending the vocabulary, grammar and structure of their writing to improve its coherence and overall effectiveness
- paying attention to accurate grammar, punctuation and spelling
Students will be taught to consolidate and build on their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary through:
- extending and applying the grammatical knowledge to analyse more challenging texts
- studying the effectiveness and impact of the grammatical features of the texts they read
- drawing on new vocabulary and grammatical constructions from their reading and listening, and using these consciously in their writing and speech to achieve particular effects
- knowing and understanding the differences between spoken and written language, including differences associated with formal and informal registers, and between Standard English and other varieties of English
- using Standard English confidently in their own writing and speech
- discussing reading, writing and spoken language with precise and confident use of linguistic and literary terminology.
Students will be taught to speak confidently and effectively, including through:
- using Standard English confidently in a range of formal and informal contexts, including classroom discussion
- giving short speeches and presentations, expressing their own ideas and keeping to the point
- participating in formal debates and structured discussions, summarising and/or building on what has been said
- improvising, rehearsing and performing play scripts and poetry in order to generate language and discuss language use and meaning, using role, intonation, tone, volume, mood, silence, stillness and action to add impact.
We use a thematic scheme of learning entitled ‘A Whole New World’. This SoL looks at different types of change in order to provide students with reassurance and the ability to discuss the issues that arise through transition from KS2 to KS3. More importantly, enabling students to recognise that change can be a positive aspect of our lives. We teach texts/extracts around transition and change, with an introduction to a mixture of reading (retrieval, understanding, inference skills, identifying language techniques) and writing skills (descriptive, transactional). These are skills that students have a foundational knowledge of at KS2 that we revise and develop further through linguistic terminology exploration, inference skills and an academic writing structure focusing on a more mature and sophisticated style enabling this style. Some of the issues at KS2 are to do with inference and depth of comprehension. We bridge this gap by providing the cultural capital of the reading at home experience by utilising Audible in our weekly reader lessons. Through these reader lessons, students also engage in topical debate, dissect social change and come to terms with understanding how other young people feel in the spaces they occupy. The intention is to harness and elicit empathy and a growth into a mature acceptance of differences and diversity.
Year 7
Our starting point for Key Stage 3, Year 7 is to begin with the ‘A Whole New World’ scheme of learning which encompasses texts and media related to change, and crafting a narrative voice. These signify how change occurs in various ways such as physical, mental or personal change. The scheme provides a backdrop of experiences which are aimed at reassuring Year 7s that their change in secondary medium is a positive one. It also encourages personal voice about students' experiences of change. We then move onto the Who am I?/Identity scheme of learning where we use texts to explore and celebrate varying cultures and festivals, and produce transactional writing pieces. This scheme of work is deliberately placed when we have key festivals such as Guy Fawkes and Christmas alongside cultural festivals such as Diwali and Black History Month. The texts and poetry selected are around emotive language, community and a sense of belonging whether that is to a culture, religion or Britain today. In the spring term, we move onto the Introduction to Shakespeare scheme of learning where students will develop some contextual understanding of Shakespearean times and The Globe Theatre, before studying some key scenes from plays like Othello - understanding the concepts of tragedy and the tragic hero, and providing the groundwork in advance of our study of Romeo and Juliet in Year 8.
By moving on to a study of poetry as required through the National Curriculum, we focus on relationships and deal with issues arising from difficult relationships, as well as looking at contemporary performance poets like local poet Benjamin Zephaniah. We incorporate oracy here, encouraging students to write and perform their own poems.
We complete Year 7 with an Introduction to Victorian Literature. This provides an opportunity to introduce students to key concepts of the Victorian era and texts such as the Industrial Revolution, London life and poverty - introducing knowledge that students can build upon when studying the pre-19th Century novel at GCSE. Students will look at extracts from Oliver Twist and Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde, before studying a Sherlock Holmes short story, bringing 19th Century writing to life and exciting our students who can emulate Sherlock’s style of being detectives. The scheme encourages students to learn about literary authorial intentions as well as critical reading skills. This will be built upon in Year 8 when students study 19th Century Gothic texts.
Year 8
Students in Year 8 begin with Gothic Horror which focus on extracts (such as Frankenstein) and Short Pre-1900 Stories (The Monkey's Paw and The Tell-Tale Heart). In Year 8, we are looking to develop key insight into 19th century texts, with particular focus on writer’s craft, developing on the Introduction to Victorian Literature scheme of learning in Year 7. By teaching gothic we are able to bring about a contextual understanding of the 19th century gothic texts and its conventions (exploring themes such as fearing the unknown/uncanny, supernatural, madness etc) - introducing key concepts that will benefit students at GCSE Language and Literature. After the October half term, students will take inspiration from their studies of gothic fiction to write their own descriptions, exploring different narrative voices (i.e. from the perspective of the hero and villain). Following on from this, we teach Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with the first time students study a play in depth. We have chosen this text as it is a well known love story but also has elements of conflict and rivalry which students can draw modern parallels with. Next students are taught transactional writing, developing their skills on writing non-fiction texts such as letters and speeches, and using rhetorical features. Finally, students will explore poetry where, as well as developing on their poetic techniques insight, they will be introduced to comparison skills that students will need further up in their English education.
Year 9
Before entering KS4, we are cognizant of the ability to develop high level critical thinking skills where students will develop on the reading and writing skills learned in Years 7 and 8. These skills include developing interpretations and ideas further, being encouraged to be more analytical in comparing texts in more depth. The schemes of learning in Year 9 for both English Language and Literature focus around the theme of diversity and Britishness, where students can critically engage with ideas surrounding what it is to be British and social issues such as identity and prejudice. Students will start the year with the play The Empress by Tanika Gupta, a play about the friendship of Queen Victoria and Abdul, but also more broadly about the relationship between Britain and India during the growth of the British Empire. Here students will develop their essay writing skills, being taught how to develop their insights and inferences and being able to link to context. Students will then move onto creative writing, developing their authorial voice by writing in the third person, moving on from the first person narrative in Years 7 and 8. In the Spring Term, students will study the theme of gender in Shakespeare plays including The Taming of the Shrew. This will allow students to explore the play critically but also make comparisons and connections to gender roles in modern society, and this also ties into gender roles in Macbeth when they study at GCSE. We then move back onto transactional writing, developing their rhetorical features but also moving onto more difficult non-fiction texts such as article writing. To finish the year, students will be studying a diverse range of poetry from different voices: black, Asian, feminist, working class, LGBTQ+, including a Shakespeare poem about male love and masculinity. Students will develop language and structure analysis skills that they have been working on in Years 7 and 8, as well as develop their comparison skills that were introduced at the end of Year 8
Teachers will be expected to follow the scheme of learning in terms of the texts studied and skills that need to be taught, adapting to the needs of the students and teaching styles. The schemes are designed in a way to allow a broad and diverse curriculum, that both meets the National Curriculum (Shakespeare, Pre-1900 texts etc) whilst ‘teaching what matters’, allowing students to explore issues of identity, society and morality, while building the reading and writing skills needed year on year.
Key Stage 4
Overview of the KS4 Curriculum:
| Knowledge | Attributes/Character | Skills | Experiences | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 10 |
|
|
|
• Audible reading • Using teacher resources and other departments to support context. • Guest Speakers • Theatre Trip to see a Shakespeare Play • Interventions |
|||
| Year 11 |
|
|
|
|
What are the fundamental principles and concepts that students need to acquire in order to progress successfully through the curriculum in GCSE English Language and English Literature?
Students need a firm grasp of the Assessment Objectives in both English Language and Literature as both subjects rely on extended responses based on different skills (even more so in English Language). In English Literature, students also need a secure understanding of the texts and the contexts in which they have been written in (An Inspector Calls, Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, Anthology poetry) as they will be expected to write at length about these texts in a closed book exam.
What have you started off with in Year 10 and why? (Links to KS3 & a purposeful transition to build on prior knowledge, context of our students, high aspirations)
In English Language, students will start off with a Gothic Literature unit of work which exposes students to a range of fictional short stories from the nineteenth-century to more modern twenty-first century texts. This scheme of learning focuses on narrative voice and allows opportunities to explore how meaning is conveyed through authorial choices, thus developing analytical skills. The scheme of learning also exposes students to GCSE style questions, building on students' prior knowledge and developing this at KS4 Level. This unit links in with student learning in Year 8, where they have studied Gothic Stories such as The Monkey’s Paw and The Tell-Tale Heart and their conventions.
In English Literature, we will be starting off with A Christmas Carol. This links to the nineteenth century texts that students will be studying in Language and students will be familiar with some of the skills needed (making interpretations, linking to context etc). Students have also come across Charles Dickens texts and extracts from Pre-C19 study in KS3, therefore will allow for students to build confidence at KS4 before being introduced into GCSE style questions.
Year 10
In Language, students follow up the Gothic Literature scheme of learning with Telling Tales, this is a creative writing unit which helps students prepare for the writing section of Paper 1. After Christmas, students will be sitting a full paper 1 in Spring Term, having studied Paper 1 skills - reading skills for fictional extracts and short 19th Century extracts/short stories, leading to creative writing skills. The texts that students are exposed to shift from fiction to nonfiction in the middle of the year, with a transitional focus on the Spoken Language Endorsement. This also means that students can complete this component of the GCSE Language course. In addition, it exposes students to transactional writing skills and Paper 2 so that students are more prepared for a Paper 2 assessment at the end of the academic year.
In Literature, we begin the term with A Christmas Carol as students are exposed to the nineteenth-century throughout the curriculum, they would have a better grasp of the time period and the context of society at this time. In addition, it makes sense thematically to do this until Christmas. In the Spring term, students then move onto An Inspector Calls, which has similar themes of social responsibility, morality and capitalism/socialism, this will allow students to build up a better understanding of the texts.
Year 11
In Language, students will start with Paper 2 Reading skills as this is an area that needs refining for our students, especially the comparison questions. Students will be guided through the different reading questions of a past paper (Hidden Figures and Anne Frank) while also being able to discuss and explore the issues presented (teaching what matters). The rest of the year will be interleaving between the reading and writing skills of Paper 1 and 2, guiding students through past papers, whilst also using the opportunity to explore current world issues, topics and themes that present themselves, for example, Climate Change, Britishness and Identity.
In Literature, for the academic year 23/24, the first half term will begin with A Christmas Carol for Paper 2 as this makes sense thematically - building up to Christmas (the current cohort have already studied Macbeth). From September 2024, students will be taught Macbeth as they lead up to Christmas. This is because through Year 10 students will have developed their skills to engage with the text and context better. After Christmas, we will study the remaining poems from the conflict section of the anthology that weren’t covered in Y10, followed by unseen poetry practice. This needs to be studied last as students will learn unseen poetry analysis skills while studying the anthology poems.
The curriculum is based on thematic approaches, especially in Year 10 and loosely in Year 11. GCSE English Language is a key course in skills based analysis (retrieval, inference, analysis, comparison, evaluation, descriptive and transactional writing), meaning that the content we work on must be meaningful to the students, i.e. looking at real world issues or giving them an engaging short story (Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat), to support greater investment in the curriculum.
The curriculum is carefully sequenced so that skills can be built upon, for example, in Literature the themes in A Christmas Carol and An Inspector Calls are similar, allowing students to look at themes of social responsibility and morality and how society has portrayed these in different time periods.
Key Stage 5
Overview of the KS5 Curriculum:
| Knowledge | Attributes/Character | Skills | Experiences | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 12 |
|
|
AO1: Apply concepts and methods from integrated linguistic and literary study as appropriate, using associated terminology and coherent written expression. AO2: Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in texts AO3: Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which texts are produced and received AO4: Explore connections across texts, informed by linguistic and literary concepts and methods AO5: Demonstrate expertise and creativity in the use of English to communicate in different ways Note: this Assessment Objective must be targeted with at least one of AO2, AO3, or AO4, either in the same task or in two or more linked tasks. (Year 13 specific) |
|
|
| Year 13 |
|
|
AO1: Apply concepts and methods from integrated linguistic and literary study as appropriate, using associated terminology and coherent written expression. AO2: Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in texts AO3: Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which texts are produced and received AO4: Explore connections across texts, informed by linguistic and literary concepts and methods AO5: Demonstrate expertise and creativity in the use of English to communicate in different ways Note: this Assessment Objective must be targeted with at least one of AO2, AO3, or AO4, either in the same task or in two or more linked tasks. (Year 13 specific) |
|
What are the fundamental principles and concepts that students need to acquire in order to progress successfully through the curriculum in KS5 English?
- develop and apply their knowledge of literary analysis and evaluation
- develop and apply their understanding of the concepts and methods appropriate for the analysis and study of language
- use linguistic and literary approaches in their reading and interpretation of texts, showing how the two disciplines can relate to each other
- engage creatively and critically with a wide range of texts
- explore the ways in which texts relate to each other and the contexts in which they are produced and received
- develop their skills as producers and interpreters of language.
What have you started off with in Year 12 and why?
- Students will combine the skills developed in the separate qualifications of GCSE English Literature and GCSE English Language and learn to apply these to texts in an integrated approach.
- This qualification provides progression from GCSE building on skills of analysing, evaluating and comparing texts and transactional writing skills, including accurate spelling, punctuation and grammar. It can, for example, allow students to develop a broader and deeper understanding of English Language and Literature as a discipline and allow them to develop higher English Language and Literature skills.
- Year 12 is split into two areas; language and literature. In literature, The Great Gatsby is a core text, a novel that again explores the themes of morality and identity but in the ‘golden age’ of America. Students will be encouraged to explore a post-WWI society in Europe and abroad and apply this to their understanding of character and multiple perspectives and audiences. Simultaneously, students will be exploring different extracts such as articles, speeches and transcripts to introduce them to different genres and their conventions.
- Students then move on to study the play Othello which reviews students’ understanding of Shakespeare from KS4 and builds upon their literary and linguistic knowledge of the play. As the play is centred on race and identity, it builds upon the diet of a moral and ethical curriculum that they have been exposed to at KS3 and KS4.
Year 12
Students will begin exploring an American novel, from which the themes will then be applied to a British play from a different time period and context to explore how universal and timeless themes affect individuals in different societies. Throughout the exploration of ideas, students will also be encouraged to explore and apply literary theory and analysis to explore concepts further. Alongside this, students will be studying a range of texts from the Anthology, also building upon their unseen analysis skills from KS4.
Year 13
- At the end of Year 12, students will be introduced to their independent coursework module which they will discuss with their class teacher. They will be given a broad range of texts that they will then have to use as a basis for their creative writing coursework. This piece will be an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge over the last year and make explicit links to the themes/styles chosen.
- Students will then study the play A Streetcar named Desire and apply their skills from Year 12 to a new style and context. The themes of society and the individual, identity and morality will also be built upon.