English Curriculum
Inspiring confident readers, writers, and thinkers.
Why study English?
What English develops
Student voice
“English is my favourite subject; the dark themes explored in The Prince of Mist and Noughts and Crosses really engaged me. I particularly enjoy creative writing and being able to use my imagination” Ellie, Year 9
Key Stage 3 English – Cycle Overview
Cycle 1
Year 7 – Transition Unit and The Prince of Mist
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Analytical skills using what/how/why paragraphs
- Creative writing including narrative and descriptive skills.
Assessment
- Reading: analysing a key character.
- Writing: narrative writing.
- Reading: analysing character development.
- Reading and writing summative assessment.
Key Vocabulary
- Characterisation
- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Foreshadowing
- Bildungsroman
- Chronological
- Cyclical
- Bias
- Pathetic Fallacy
- Archetype
- Gothic (as in genre)
Year 8 – Animal Farm
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Continuing to develop analytical skills and linking to relevant context.
- Persuasive writing skills including article and speech writing.
Assessment
- Reading – analysing a key character.
- Writing a speech.
- Reading – analysing a theme.
- Reading and writing summative assessment.
Key Vocabulary
- Allegory
- Rhetoric
- Hyperbole
- Totalitarianism
- Socialism
- Democratic
- Hierarchy
- Propaganda
- Maxim
Year 9 – Noughts and Crosses
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Evaluation skills and developing an argument as part of analysis.
- Creative writing
- Persuasive writing including speech and letter writing.
Assessment
- Writing a description.
- Reading - inferring meaning and analysing effect in poetry.
- Writing a narrative.
- Reading and writing summative assessment.
Key Vocabulary
- Epigraph
- Prologue
- Juxtaposition
- Segregation
- Militia
- Eurocentric
- Dystopian
- Authorial intent
- Prejudice
- Denouement
Cycle 2
Year 7 – A Midsummer Night's Dream
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Analytical skills using what/how/why paragraphs
- Creative writing including narrative and descriptive skills.
Assessment
- Reading - analysing a character.
- Writing to argue.
- Reading - analysing a theme within the play.
- Writing to inform and review.
Key Vocabulary
- Shakespearean
- Patriarch/patriarchal
- Stagecraft
- Malapropism
- Antagonistic
- Monologue
- Soliloquy
- Aside (as in dramatic technique)
- Athenian
- Supernatural
Year 8 – The Crucible
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Developing analytical skills and linking to relevant context.
- Persuasive writing skills including article and speech writing.
Assessment
- Reading – analysis of a character.
- Writing a description.
- Reading – analysis of a theme.
- Writing a narrative ending.
Key Vocabulary
- Playwright
- Persecution
- Hysteria/moral panic
- Crucible
- Fatal flaw
- Communism
- Modernism
- Dramatisation
- Historical fiction (as in genre)
- Realism
Year 9 – Romeo and Juliet
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Evaluation skills and developing an argument as part of analysis.
- Creative writing
- Persuasive writing including speech and letter writing.
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Hamartia
- Peripeteia
- Catharsis
- Elizabethan
- Oxymoron
- Sonnet
- Iambic pentameter
- Microcosm
- Familial
- Anagnorisis
Cycle 3
Year 7 – Myths and Legends
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Analytical skills using what/how/why paragraphs
- Creative writing including narrative and descriptive skills.
Assessment
- Analysing meaning in poetic storytelling.
- Writing: descriptive writing.
- Reading: analysing character development.
- Writing: narrative description.
Key Vocabulary
- Legend
- Fable
- Folklore
- Epic
- Hero/Heroine
- Villain
- Quest
- Moral
- Symbolism
Year 8 – Non-Fiction Writing
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Continuing to develop analytical skills and linking to relevant context.
- Persuasive writing skills including article and speech writing.
Assessment
- Writing to inform and describe.
- Reading - analysing meaning in non-fiction writing.
- Writing to persuade.
- Reading - analysing meaning and comparing non-fiction writing.
Key Vocabulary
- Orient (both interpretations of word)
- Autobiography
- Memoir
- Formality
- Tonality
- Afropean
- Emotive language
- Cliché
- Suffix
- Prefix
Year 9 – Detective Fiction
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Evaluation skills and developing an argument as part of analysis.
- Creative writing
- Persuasive writing including speech and letter writing.
Assessment
- Reading - analysing meaning and evaluating ideas.
- Writing to narrate.
- Reading - analysing meaning and evaluating ideas.
- Writing to describe.
Key Vocabulary
- Exposition
- Denouement
- Duality
- Dichotomy
- Enigmatic
- Bohemia
- Red herring
- Reputation
- Nineteenth Century
- Carbuncle
Key Stage 4 English – AQA GCSE Literature and Language
Cycle 1 – Literature and Language
Year 10 – Conventions of Gothic Literature
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
- GCSE style exam questions including: Language Paper 1
- Literature Paper 1
Key Vocabulary
- Conscious construct
- Duality
- Epistolary
- Repression
- Imagery: similes and metaphors
- Narration (third person, omniscient, limited, unreliable)
- Motif
- Analepsis
- Prolepsis
- Fin de siècle
Year 11 – Power and Conflict Poetry
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Continue to develop analytical skills but applying them to a more extended, essay style task and building a coherent argument.
Assessment
- GCSE style exam questions including: Language Paper 1
- Literature Paper 2
Key Vocabulary
- Socialism
- Capitalism
- Verisimilitude
- Dramatic Irony
- Impertinent
- Patriarch/patriarchal
- Bourgeoisie
- Modernism
- Nouveau Riche
- Euphemism/Dysphemism
Cycle 2 – Literature and Language
Year 10 – Macbeth and Non-Fiction Writing
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
- GCSE style exam questions including: Language Paper 2
- Literature Paper 1
Year 11 – Revising English Literature Paper 1 and English Language Paper 2
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Revising knowledge and skills from KS4.
Assessment
- GCSE style exam questions including: Language Paper 2
- Literature Paper 1
Key Vocabulary
- Juggernaut
- Troglodytic
- Transcendental
- Atavism
- Misogyny
- Stock (relating to character)
- Foil (relating to character)
- Machiavelli/ Machiavellian
- Coherence (in writing)
- Logos, Pathos, Ethos
Cycle 3 – Literature and Language
Year 10 – An Inspector Calls and Non-Fiction Writing
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
- GCSE style exam questions including: Language Paper 1
- Literature Paper 2
Key Vocabulary
- Synthesise
- Rhetoric/Rhetorical
- Broadsheet
- Romantic (as in literary movement)
- Assonance
- Consonance
- Onomatopoeia
- Synaesthesia
- Dactylic dimeter
- Iambic tetrameter
Year 11 – Revision in preparation for Externally Set Examinations
Key Stage 4 Film Studies – Eduqas GCSE
Cycle 1
Year 10 – British Film
Knowledge focus
- Introduction and exploration of contemporary British Film
- Key features of film including characterisation, genre and cinematography
Key Skills
- Introduce and develop analytical skills, applying them to a Film
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Action
- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Cinematography
- Mise en scene
- Key lighting
Year 11 – Histories and Features of US Films
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Mainstream
- Independent
- Generic conventions
- Narrative
- Genre
Cycle 2
Year 10 – Non-English Language Films
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Anarchism
- Fascism
- Authoritarianism
- Diegetic
- Non-diegetic
Year 11 – Independent US Films
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Hybrid
- Iconography
- Stereotypes
- Psychological
Cycle 3
Year 10 – Developments in Film and Film Production
Knowledge focus
Key skills
- Explore the process behind the production of a film. With a particular focus of screenplays and story boards.
- Explore the history of film production and the changes throughout the 20th century.
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Screenplay
- Filming script
- Denouement
- Symbolism
- Climax
- Foreshadowing
- Mood
- Motif
Year 11 – Revision in preparation for Externally Set Examinations
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Hybrid
- Iconography
- Stereotypes
- Psychological
Key Stage 5 Literature A Level AQA
Cycle 1
Year 12
Knowledge focus
- Love through the Ages: Othello and The Great Gatsby
- Characterisation, Genre, context of early 20th century America
- Feature of a Shakespearean tragedy play, Stage craft, Context of Jacobean England.
Key Skills
- Continue to develop analytical skills but applying them to a more extended, essay style task and building a coherent argument.
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- American Dream
- Disillusionment
- Capitalism
- Protagonist
- Tragedy
- Tragic hero, Hamartia
- Pathos
- Catharsis
Year 13
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Dystopian
- Plastic Theatre
- Prophetic
- Totalitarian
- Analogy
- Allusion
- Bildungsroman
- Didactic
- Dichotomy
Cycle 2
Year 12
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Meter
- Rhyme
- Sonnet
- Allusion
- Allegory
- Apostrophe
- Ballad
- Iambic pentameter
Year 13
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Irony
- Metaphor
- Simile
- Syntax
- Lexis
- Ambiguity
- Archetype
- Stream of Consciousness
Cycle 3
Year 12
Knowledge focus
Key skills
Assessment
Key Vocabulary
- Fin de Siecle
- Denouement
- Symbolism
- Climax
- Foreshadowing
- Mood
- Motif
- Damsel
Year 13
Knowledge focus
Key skills
For Key Stage 5 Curriculum information please click link here to our Sixth Form Curriculum