English

Passionate, committed, friendly and clever, St Peter’s English department cultivates successful, knowledgeable and confident learners. Outstanding teaching coupled with a broad and rich curriculum encourages students to enjoy the challenges, rigour and creativity of English. The scope of literature they study enables them to explore ideas about the richness of humanity and society discovering how they fit into the world.

The department equips students with vital skills to read, write and speak fluently. This serves them for their academic study at school and so that they are best placed to achieve their potential for their future beyond St Peter’s.

The beating heart of the department is providing joyful experiences for all students: through lessons as well as the breadth of stimulating, inspiring opportunities offered. This encompasses theatre trips; poetry competitions; writing challenges; museum trips; book clubs; musical trips; debating clubs and peer mentoring. The student-centred approach seeks to celebrate any and all successes.

Key Stage Three

All units at Key Stage 3 work to explore an exciting range of texts while building students’ skills. Students have 6 lessons per fortnight and homework 3 times in a half term.

In Year 7, students study three units. The World We Live In focusses on viewpoint and ‘voice’ and pupils are empowered to express their opinions in a strong and convincing way. Reading Detectives allows our students to read the novel Trash and immerse themselves in the themes and issues that some young children face. Students end the year studying Shakespeare exploring ideas about magic, love and conflict.

In Year 8, students build on the knowledge they gained in Year 7 and are further challenged to explore literary heritage texts in their study of Capturing Conflict. Students read a class novel and respond creatively to it. Students then study a unit called ‘Dark Times’ which enables them to engage with a range of classic gothic texts. Finally, they look at ‘Comedy Past and Present’ which exposes students to a range of humorous travel writing texts and allows them to write their own. Students also read a class play.

In Year 9, students begin their preparation for GCSE with the study of a Victorian novel, either Great Expectations or Oliver Twist. Here, pupils learn and engage with important contextual factors and begin to understand how these influence a writer. They then look at ‘Dystopian Worlds’, an exciting ‘social protest’ unit, which explores themes and issues that impact modern society. In the final term, students are preparing for GCSE through their study of tragedy and Macbeth.

Key Stage Four

All students are entered for two GCSE qualifications: English Language (AQA) and English Literature (AQA). They have 8 lessons a fortnight across both qualifications and homework 3 times in a half term.

The English Language GCSE is comprised of two papers (covering fiction and non-fiction) which assess a range of reading and writing skills where reading and writing are worth the same amount of marks. There is also a non-examined assessment for Spoken Language which is a separate endorsement.

The English Literature GCSE requires pupils to study a cluster of poems (Love and Relationships), the modern play An Inspector Calls’, the nineteenth-century novel A Christmas Carol and the Shakespeare play Macbeth.

Theatre trips and visiting companies are used to bring these texts to life for students and our regular class recall activities, revision booklets, ‘10 in 10’ strategy and revision clubs are the foundation of students’ independent study.  We set regular mini homework tasks (three per half term) that allow pupils the opportunity for deliberate practice of key skills.

Key Stage Five

At A Level, we offer two linear A Levels:AQA English Literature Specification B. focusses on a study of two literary genres: tragedy and crime. In addition to the examinations, there is also a non-examined assessment worth 20% where pupils are required to write two essays: one on a novel and one on a poetry collection. These two texts are then linked to areas of critical theory.

AQA English Language and Literature focusses on the study of a range of literary texts (The Handmaid’s Tale, The Great Gatsby, Carol Ann Duffy’s Poetry and A Streetcar Named Desire) and a non-literary anthology of texts linked to the theme of Paris.

Curriculum Overview by Year Group and Term