Curriculum - Subject Information

Reason for sequencing the curriculum for every year group in the way it is, and the subject specific/pedagogical approach taken: 

Stradbroke’s English curriculum offers a five-year progression of the key skills that are required at GCSE level.  

The key skills required at the end of KS4 are:  

• Comparing 19th, 20th and 21st Century fiction and non-fiction 

• Evaluating the writers’ perspectives 

• Identifying and evaluating a writer’s structural and linguistic choices 

• Creative writing  

• Spoken language. 

• Identifying inference 

• Demonstrating varied and accurate spellings, punctuation, and grammar 

• Broadening their cultural experiences and considering the context of a text 

One of our goals within English is to enrich our students cultural understanding. We strongly believe that exposing our students to a wealth of challenging fiction and non-fiction and allowing them to discuss it in a safe and constructive environment, we are modelling the importance of reading and enabling them to consider real life situations from another person’s perspective. Promoting equality is at the very heart of every lesson that we teach within English.  

The English KS3 curriculum is sequenced in accordance with a particular theme that we wish to address. 

Year 7 -- Outsiders (social outcast) 

As our students embark on their new, educational journey, we devised a thematic scheme of work which is centered around the concept of being ‘an outsider’. Throughout year 7, our students will read both contemporary and 19th Century fiction and non-fiction to evoke class discussions and personal reflection about how a writer has used both language and structure to manipulate our feelings towards key characters and settings.  

Year 8 – The role of women (gender inequality) 

The long-term plan for year 8 students is centered on the theme: ‘The role of women’.  The concept derives from our understanding of some of the central themes that are relevant in the set texts that we offer at GCSE level. We, therefore, designed a long-term plan that offers our students with numerous opportunities to discuss and write about the ‘role of women’ according to the text or short story that they are studying. An example of this is the task of researching a range of 1940’s adverts about housework, as an introductory homework task, that could form the basis of a class discussion about ‘the role of women’ and what society expected women to do or behave like. Once they have a greater understanding of the importance of context, they can then reflect on how and why the writer has created the female character in that way, using challenging and stimulating texts such as: ‘The Lamb to the Slaughter’.  

Year 9 – Conflict (war and identity) 

At the beginning of this year, we have decided to use the first term to scaffold the skills of: evaluation and Identification of a writer’s structural and linguistic choices with a former GCSE set text ‘The Curious Incident of the dog in the Night-time’. This highly relevant and stimulating play script will promote a love of reading whilst enabling students to reflect on their own experiences within a school setting. It will also enable them to have influential discussions about neurodiversity, family separation and our expectations of education. During terms two and three, we have developed a curriculum that collates some of the core skills that students have been practising throughout Key Stage 3: characterisation, the evaluation of a writer’s perspective and the identification and analysis of a writer’s use of literary craft.  

We take great pride in the fact that we teach mixed ability students, and we feel that it is of paramount importance that we give our students the sufficient time that they need to read, discuss, and process the challenging social contexts that are hidden within GCSE Literature. As a result, we explore the use of language, structure and characterisation within our modern text within the final term of year 9 so that students can use the two remaining years of their GCSEs to develop their written expression and maturity to enable them to confidently explore context. We are a school which prides itself on inclusion and pupil progress. The creation of an ever-changing, challenging, stimulating, and thematic Key Stage 3 curriculum allows us to effectively cater for the wide variety of students that we teach. 

In Key Stage 4, we have separated the cluster of fifteen ‘Power and Conflict’ poems into themes to allow our students to make visible (thematic) connections between the poems and to revisit poems that they have already studied according to a different theme. The very nature of grouping poems relates to our sequencing approach in KS3 as we try to provide a clear rationale behind the purposes of studying the texts that we do or why we focus on a particular skill. Our rationale behind the thematic approach stems from student interviews and verbal feedback as our students are confident about why they are learning each new topic.  

How we build on prior learning: 

The English curriculum offers a five-year progression of the key skills that are required at GCSE level.  

We use Key Stage 2 SATs scores and benchmark tasks to enable us to gain a greater understanding about the level students are working at. Such benchmarking activities also allow us to modify our lessons to support the needs of our students.  

We provide opportunities for our students to address each key skill from year 7 onwards; we create tailored activities that are suitably challenging for the mixed ability students that we have in our classes.  

The key skill is often accompanied by a carefully selected short story, piece of non-fiction or complete novel to allow our students to learn about how to approach a key skill and how to write about it as we offer countless opportunities for our students to demonstrate their understanding of the skill that we are addressing that term.  

Throughout the five-year process, our students are taught key approaches to their analysis and creative writing, which is taught consistently throughout each class; our students are then provided with secure foundations to build upon as their levels of maturity and understanding of the culture that surrounds each activity. 

As our students’ progress through their five-year curriculum, we select more challenging texts and add more challenging subject terminology into their learning with a higher expectation for them to expand on their initial ideas so that they then produce a more detailed analysis or piece of creative writing that reflects the beginnings of a perceptive and confident learner.  

We also try to offer our students more opportunities to be independent learners; this can be seen through the types of homework tasks that we give our students. 

How we prepare students for the future: 

The five-year English curriculum offers students a wealth of opportunities to discuss and increase their cultural experiences. Each text that we study, has a host of contextual factors that we regularly discuss and encourage them to write about when exploring a writer’s perspective. 

 We look at historical context, ranging from World War 1, World War 2, modern warfare, The Great Depression, and racial inequality ‘Of Mice and Men’. 

We explore the social context within texts such as depression, learning disability and gender inequality within texts such as ‘Of Mice and Men’, ‘The Curious Incident of the dog in the Night-time’, and ‘Princess and The Hustler’. 

We also explore the political context within texts such as ‘An Inspector Calls’ and ‘Macbeth’. 

We make wider curriculum links to other subjects that are studying key ideas at the same time as us e.g., year 7 (autumn one) are taught about symbols in literature as well as Art.  

All our texts are taught with a great emphasis on class discussion and group work as it provides our students with a safe learning environment for them to discuss their views, with the guidance of their class teacher, to enable them to appreciate who we all are and how our country, and others, have been shaped by society.  

Our subject allows our students to be prepared for life beyond secondary education and their future careers. The ability to have a confident understanding of their written and verbal expression are essential skills for any future employment. Being able to interpret and make inferences from written texts are vital skills in all careers, however, the mastery of English is of particular importance in some careers such as: Art and design, publishing and media, education, recruitment and HR, law, advertising, and marketing.  

By studying and teaching a range of texts, we are broadening our students’ views about society whilst modelling respect, empathy, and an appreciation for others. 

Additional provision to support learning: 

• The English department offers a range of trips throughout the five-year curriculum. 

• Every year group gets the opportunity to go to a live theatre production so that they can experience live theatre and see actors/actresses exercising their creativity.  

• The English department run creative writing competitions to allow all students to produce high quality work that is recognised outside of their English classroom.  

Contribution to school priorities: 

We have high expectations and offer differentiation in lessons to support and challenge all learners. 

We organise tailored interventions with different groups (according to ability and need) 

We organise trips and visits for students who may not usually have access to them in order to broaden their horizons. 

We read a selection of fiction and non-fiction that enriches students’ historical and cultural knowledge 

How we use (non)-fiction throughout our curriculum 

We model the benefits of being able to project your voice and ‘read out loud’ during every lesson.  

We encourage our students to read parts of play, sections of their work, paragraphs from the novel/poems/non-fiction that we are studying to practice the skills of public speaking.  

Each Key Stage 3 theme is accompanied by range of non-fiction extracts to enhance student understanding of societal issues and prepares them for the world of work and life beyond Stradbroke High School.  

Each Key Stage 3 unit is accompanied by a list of key terminology to enhance student understanding of language and structural techniques that are used within our English curriculum and life outside of Stradbroke High School.