Richard Challoner School

English

English Teachers

  • Mrs T Cheema (Subject Leader)
  • Mr M Baker
  • Miss A Cook
  • Miss S Durdle
  • Mr J Gallagher
  • Miss E Gibby
  • Miss C Lovell
  • Mr K McKenna
  • Mr J Mundy
  • Mr N Mander
  • Mrs C Verdin

A Vision for English

Studying English at Richard Challoner provides all pupils with a mastery of language and the tools for successful communication – written and orally – throughout their life.  Studying English develops empathy through greater understanding of a range of experiences of life, far beyond what they, as readers, will ever experience and encourages them to challenge prejudice.  It also provides them with the tools of analysis in order to understand, evaluate and critique ideas.  Students gain a lifelong enjoyment of reading both fiction and non-fiction because of their studies in English.  Everything that they gain from their years of studying English is essential for success in all areas of their future academic, professional and personal lives.

English: Key Stage 3

Year 7:

  • Term 1:  Key text – Boy by Roald Dahl. Other texts: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and a range of poetry based on Childhood.
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing – technical accuracy and content. 2. Reading – understanding and supporting / analysing.
  • Term 2:  Trash by Andy Mulligan – Whole text teaching for EOY exam.  Scheme on non-fiction writing / travel writing.
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Reading – understanding and Supporting / analysing. 2. Writing - content and ideas / technical accuracy / structure.
  • Term 3:  Julius Caesar or A Midsummer’s Night Dream / The history of Language – Beowulf to Dickens.
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing – content / technical accuracy / structure - S&L 2. Reading – understanding and supporting / analysing.

Year 8:

  • Term 1:  Gothic: writing: a range of fiction, non-fiction, extracts from Macbeth and poetry.  Romeo and Juliet
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing – technical accuracy / content and ideas / structure. 2. Reading – understanding and supporting / analysing.
  • Term 2:  Travel writing and Relationships poetry
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing- structure and organisation / content and ideas / technical accuracy. 2 Reading – analysing / understanding and supporting with comparing texts.
  • Term 3:  Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - EOY exam to also include revision skills. The Art of Rhetoric.
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing – content and ideas / structure - S&L 2. Reading - understanding and supporting / analysing / comparing.evaluating.

Year 9:

  • Term 1:  Othello by William Shakespeare and Pre 19th Century text
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing – technical accuracy / content and ideas / structure. 2. Reading – understanding and supporting / analysing.
  • Term 2:  Anthology of conflict poetry, the poetry of WW1 and personal conflict. Animal Farm by George Orwell – Whole text teaching for EOY exam.
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing – structure / content and ideas / technical accuracy. 2. Reading – understanding and supporting / analysing / evaluating.
  • Term 3:  Modern Play – The Crucible / Blood Brothers and Writing to Persuade / Speech writing.
    The two Big Ideas to be assessed: 1. Writing – structure and organisation / content and ideas - S&L 2. Reading – understanding and supporting / analysing / evaluating.

English: Key Stage 4

Exam Board: AQA

Course: GCSE English Language and GCSE English Literature. Functional Skills English (Levels 1 & 2)

Link to specification: CLICK HERE

English: Key Stage 5

ENGLISH LANGUAGE: A Level

Exam Board: AQA

Course Content: A level English Language is a two year linear course, offering the opportunity for students to develop their expertise by engaging creatively and critically with a wide range of texts and discourses. The course will appeal to students who enjoy thinking about how language can be used creatively throughout society. Students will be expected to develop a comprehensive critical vocabulary for deconstructing language and its usage, and they will be given the opportunity to analyse, evaluate and debate a range of texts (both spoken and written). More specifically, students will be able to explore some of the following aspects of language: “Language and the Individual”, (focussing on individual and social contexts for language, including Child Language Development); “Language Diversity and Change”, (a consideration of larger-scale public discourses about change and variety, drawing on regional, ethnic. national and global versions of English); “Independent Language Investigation and Original Writing”, (an independent investigation into an area of particular interest and a piece of original writing – at A2 only).

The English Language course is ideally suited to students who understand the importance of communication in a global world; students who can ask intelligent questions about texts; students who are eager to develop a critical linguistic vocabulary way beyond the demands of GCSE English.

ENGLISH LITERATURE: A Level

Exam Board: AQA (Specification B)

Course Content: This is a linear course covering the study of a range of literary texts of different periods (including pre-1900 and post-2000 writing) grouped by genre (for example, comedy or tragedy; crime or political and social protest writing). Over the course of the two year A level course, students will study at least eight texts, two of which will be drama, two prose and two poetry. Students will have the opportunity to explore connections between texts and how texts might be interpreted in a multiplicity of ways, enriched by a reading of a range of critical theory. In the second year of the course, they will have the opportunity to choose their own texts for study in the “Theory and Independence” unit of the course. Students need to be prepared to engage in detailed textual analysis, creative and independent interpretive thinking, and regular and rigorous essay writing.