English

At Stoke Newington School, the English department prides itself in supporting students in both a creative and purposeful environment where they feel safe to express their ideas, and to challenge themselves to try their best in the exploration of language and literature. Teachers are committed to engaging and supporting students from all backgrounds and prior attainment. Through reading, writing and discussion, our aim is for students to develop inquisitive and critical minds for life-long learning, to take pleasure in reading, and to develop empathy and understanding of others. Moreover, we want students to be suitably equipped and confident, knowing how to use both written and spoken language to empower themselves for an exciting and promising future.

If you would like to find more about our whole school literacy provision please click here.

English at Key Stage 3

We start Key Stage 3 in English with an engaging and creative response to Tracey Baptiste’s Caribbean gothic story Jumbies. We continue by reading a range of high quality, engaging and challenging texts which reflects our community. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that pupils read whole texts because we recognise the importance of students being given the opportunity to immerse themselves in a text, to develop their own interpretations, and to explore layers of meaning.

We teach in mixed ability groups throughout Key Stage 3 with support and appropriate levels of challenge for students who need it. Lessons are varied, encompassing discussion, imaginative writing, oracy and performance. In Year 9 we focus on the skills required for GCSE whilst keeping a broad and relevant curriculum. To help encourage reading for pleasure, students spend one lesson a fortnight in the library where they can choose books to take home.

Year 7

Our theme for the Year 7 is Heroes and Villains and this theme is explored in a variety of ways and contexts across the Schemes of Work. Students engage with a broad range of literature over the year during which we introduce the students to the core subject skills required not just for their transition to secondary school English but also to build their enjoyment and engagement in literature and language.

Students also have ample opportunity to respond to texts creatively, with two creative writing units encouraging students to write in genre – the Gothic unit in half term 1, and the Crime Fiction unit in half term 4. Students are encouraged to be ambitious and adventurous in their descriptive language and begin sharing their work confidently. The combination of exploring big ideas in texts and creativity is found in our exploring of Frankenstein through a play version and the exploration of self and identity through Poetry. This emphasis on confidence in expressing big ideas through challenging vocabulary is further developed in the final term where we shift to a non-fiction focus. Students develop their oracy in half term 5 where they write speeches based on Everyday heroes in modern life. Finally, students engage with social action through our My Community and Me unit. Students also have fortnightly Library lessons to extend their exploration of reading for pleasure.

Students’ learning will be supported by homework that supports their academic learning but also their enjoyment of reading.

Year 7 curriculum map | Year 7 assessment grid

A small number of students who require literacy support follow an adapted English curriculum, which you can view here.

Year 8

The thematic focus for Year 8 is Journeys and this theme is explored in a variety of contexts across the year. The focus for the whole of the Autumn term is focussed around reading Zana Fraillon’s The Bone Sparrow with its themes of journeying and belonging. Students read the story of Subhi, a Rohingya refugee in an Australian detention centre over the whole term and respond to the novel in both creative writing and critical analysis of the story and its complex themes.

In the first Spring half term, students explore narrative structure by reading a diverse range of short stories linked to the theme of fantastical journeys. Students will apply narrative structuring techniques to their own pieces of creative writing. Students then move on to exploring epic poetry. This unit offers students an opportunity to read parts of The Odyssey before reading excerpts from a modern Epic poem by the Nigerian poet Inua Ellams.

In the Summer term, students focus on journalistic writing that gets them researching, interviewing and writing stories focussed on real life journeys of people they are linked to. Finally, the year is rounded off with a creative response to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Students study Shakespeare’s story of a magician on an Island and the shipwreck he causes, then respond critically by exploring the nature of Prospero’s claim to the island.

As in Year 7, students have fortnightly Library lessons and homework will be set by teachers weekly.

Year 8 curriculum map | Year 8 assessment grid

A small number of students who require literacy support follow an adapted English curriculum, which you can view here.

Year 9

Year 9 is a bridging year between Key Stage 3 and 4. While we retain the creativity and breadth of the Key Stage 3 curriculum, we focus on consolidating the skills required for the beginning of the GCSE curriculum in Year 10. We begin the year with an intensive and whole text exploration of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and later examine George Orwell’s Animal Farm. These units are marked against the GCSE criteria for literature and prepare the student for their study of our chosen GCSE texts.

Similarly, the Non-Fiction units are geared towards persuasive writing and exploring conflicting opinion which will prepare students for the types of tasks required for the Language GCSE. Students also spend a term working on Dystopian writing, teaching them to write creatively within a certain genre, building on the work of the Gothic and Crime creating writing units at KS3. Towards the end of the year, we begin our transition to the study of GCSE content through the introduction and teaching of a selection of the poems on the GCSE Power and Conflict Poetry Anthology. In the last half term, students then develop their speech writing skills and present a speech which will count towards the spoken language element of their English Language GCSE.

English at Key Stage 4

Our varied and challenging Key Stage 4 course focusses on the big ideas that all the texts we read and explore raise. This focus on exploring the big ideas ensures that students are engaged in the meaningful questions that life raises while they are being equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their desired outcomes for their English Language and English Literature GCSE qualifications. Our exam board is AQA.

Over the Literature course, all students will study Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, J.B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and a range of poetry from the AQA Power & Conflict anthology. In doing so, students are encouraged to explore not just how writers craft their language to convey meanings, but also how the big themes and issues of these texts can be related to from both a modern perspective but also an inclusive and decolonised perspective.

For Language, students will learn to read a range of fiction and non-fiction texts critically, as well as to develop their own creative and journalistic writing skills.

We organise our Key Stage 4 content along a spiral curriculum in which we cover all the Literature texts and Language Exam skills in Year 10 and then return to them in Year 11, allowing us much more time to focus on recalling knowledge and teaching the exam writing skills in more depth.

Year 9 curriculum map | Year 10 curriculum map | Year 11 curriculum map

English key stage 4 resources

English at Key Stage 5

At A-Level, we believe that literature is both a discipline as well as a deeply enriching subject. Out curriculum encourages students to read diverse, mature and often challenging texts from the canon and beyond. We believe in discussion-based learning that allows students to develop their own interpretations of texts, examining how writers create meaning, and how these ideas remain relevant to our world today.

Our diverse approach encourages original ideas about texts and the contexts in which they were written to give students an appreciation of how literature has developed over time. We want students to develop deeper thinking as well as crafting of written responses through in-class writing and coursework.

Using the OCR Exam Board, our A-Level literature programme aims to build on reading and writing skills developed at GCSE. We expect students to read widely and independently because we want to see our students leaving us with the ability to be confident and successful at the next stage of life, whether that be in higher education or the world of work

English Curriculum Map Year 12 | English Curriculum Map Year 13

Enrichment

We understand that students often thrive best when their learning is also an experience. Therefore, we endeavour to provide a range of enrichment opportunities, from Year 7 through to Year 13. These include:

• experiencing Shakespeare in performance
• theatre trips
• using drama to engage with texts
• visiting a local nature reserve to help inspire creative writing
• increased use of project-based homework
• lectures
• writing competitions (in school and national)
• opportunities for KS5 students to mentor English students in KS3/4
• Writing for real life audiences
• Revision sessions

Career and future pathways

Students' study of English will leave pupils confident in their ability to express themselves, both in speech and writing. In addition, over the seven years here, their social, cultural and historical understanding will have been enriched by the wealth and variety of literature and topics studied and discussed on a daily basis.