We aim to show students that words are powerful things; they influence people and change the world.
We plan for Enjoyment, Enthusiasm and Engagement in English.
The ethos underpinning English at The Meadows is that students have enjoyment in, enthusiasm for and engagement with the subject. We endeavour to secure competence in fundamental reading and writing skills to build towards future success and prepare our students for their next stage; we also aim to inspire confidence in reading a wide range of rich literature texts, building cultural capital. This will be facilitated through a broad and challenging curriculum, personalised learning approaches and inspiring learning resources.
Key Stage 3
Many of our students join us with low prior attainment in English and often the belief that they cannot achieve success; in response to this, skills development is central to our curriculum delivery. We also build regular opportunities for students to retrieve subject knowledge from Key Stage 2 and use weekly skills lessons to address gaps in learning and build student confidence in reading and writing. These lessons are flexible and responsive but are also structured to improve spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Learning is well sequenced to ensure that students accumulate knowledge of key constituents of language including vocabulary, grammar and the conventions of reading, writing and spoken language. Additionally, not all our students join us in Year 7 so our curriculum includes regular opportunities to revisit learning and fill potential gaps and we acknowledge the need to be flexible and adapt our curriculum to meet the needs of our students.
Teachers also adapt the curriculum to the individual needs of learners and to ensure that lessons are both engaging and challenging. Units of work have a thematic focus, encouraging students to make connections and develop the contextual knowledge needed to access increasingly complex texts. We follow the National Curriculum, building student aspiration through reading ambitious texts from a range of genres and time periods and through embedding key concepts which are threaded through all our units of work.
Key concepts
- Conflict
- Injustice
- Power and Persuasion
- Identity
- Relationships
- Diversity and Difference
- Magic and Mischief
- Reading
There is a strong emphasis on developing reading fluency through phonics intervention and on building comprehension skills through Reciprocal Reading and explicit vocabulary instruction. We also aim to develop a love of reading through the selection of high-quality modern novels, encouraging students to read for pleasure. Teachers also read aloud, giving students the opportunity to access a broad range of challenging texts from different genres and time periods.
Subject Curriculum Overview: Key Stage 3
|
Year |
Topics Covered |
|
7 |
● Identity: an exploration of autobiography including Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens, Maya Angelou and Nelson Mandela ● Social Injustice: Charles Dickens and the Victorians including ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Oliver Twist’ ● Fate and Consequence: an exploration of the modern novel ‘Holes’ ● Magic and Mischief: Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ ● Conflict: Michael Murpurgo’s ‘War Horse’ and a range of war poetry ● Different Cultures: a range of poetry and travel writing |
Year 7 – Substantive knowledge coverage
|
Word level |
Sentence level |
Text level |
|
● Parts of speech – identify and apply accurately ● nouns [common, proper, abstract, collective] ● verbs (main verbs) ● verbs (modal verbs, auxiliary verbs) ● adjectives ● adverbs ● pronouns |
● Punctuation (full stops, commas,parentheses, ellipsis) ● Subject Verb Object (SVO) relationship within a sentence ● Altering word order for effect |
● Paragraphs (TiPToP) ● Cohesive devices (simple discourse markers such as firstly, secondly, in addition etc.) ● Topic sentences to introduce paragraph |
|
Reading |
Writing |
Speaking and Listening |
|
● Explicit and implicit information ● Information retrieval ● Start to identify words that writers have used for effect ● Understand effect of simile, metaphor and alliteration |
● Non-chronological writing ● Descriptive writing (using the senses as stimulus) ● Use of advanced vocabulary for description ● Apply word level, sentence level and text level skills |
● Question formation (what/when/why/where/who/ how/did…/can…./has…/could…/ should…./would…./will…..) ● Turn taking ● Responding appropriately |
Curriculum Overview: Key Stage 3
|
Year |
Topics Covered |
|
8 |
● Fantasy: an exploration of the genre through a range of fiction extracts ● Diversity and Difference: in the modern novel ‘Wonder’ by R. J Palacio ● Heroes and Villains: a range of fiction and non-fiction texts including Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ by Robert Louis Stevenson ● Power and Responsibility: in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ ● Voices and Viewpoints: an exploration of language and protest including Wilfred Owen, Martin Luther King and Amanda Gorman ● Survival: William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ and ‘Touching the Void’ by Joe Simpson |
Year 8 - Substantive knowledge coverage
|
Word level |
Sentence level |
Text level |
|
● Conjunctions ● Prepositions ● Active and passive tenses ● Past tense/perfect tense (ie I have eaten vs I ate) ● Advanced vocabulary – word bank building ● Adverbial phrases ● Noun phrases |
● Punctuation (colon,semicolon, hyphen) ● Clauses ( subordinate clauses/subordinating conjunctions) ● Types of sentences (simple,compound, complex) ● Functions of sentences (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory) Fronted adverbials |
● Structure/organisational features ● Time/causal connectives for cohesion ● Shaping/following an argument or persuasive piece |
|
Reading |
Writing |
Speaking and Listening |
|
● P.E.E framework ● Embedded quotations ● Effectiveness of writers’ language choice ● Starting to evaluate writers’ craft ● Understand effect of personification, onomatopoeia and imagery |
● Writing to argue/persuade ● Rhetorical devices (FORESTRY) ● Writing to inform/explain (clear presentation format) ● Narrative writing using narrative structure |
● Speech (using rhetorical devices) ● Presentation ● Use of layered questions for deeper questioning techniques (literal, deductive, evaluative) |
Year 9 is a bridging year which consolidates the substantive knowledge acquired in Years 7 and 8, interleaves higher order skills and introduces more challenging texts in order to prepare pupils for the GCSE requirements.
|
Year |
Topics Covered |
|
9 |
● Gothic Horror: an exploration of the genre based on Susan Hill’s ‘The Woman in Black’ ● Power and Persuasion: in ‘Animal Farm’ and related media texts ● Class Conflict: in Willy Russell’s ‘Blood Brothers’ ● Friendship: in John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ ● Love and Hate: in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ ● Step up to English Component 2: GCSE bridging unit and Entry Level Certificate |
Key Stage 4
We recognise that our students may need additional support to access the GCSE syllabus and utilise Step Up to English- an Entry Level Certificate- as a bridging qualification to ensure that our students achieve success early in Key Stage 4.
The curriculum is sequenced to build upon this foundation of skills to make GCSE English Language accessible to students, preparing them to move on to their next stage.
We also build upon the conceptual knowledge gained in Key Stage 3 by studying GCSE Literature texts. In weekly accreditation lessons, students will gain AQA Unit Awards in Literature and aspire to sit the English Literature GCSE exam where appropriate.
Qualification Pathways
A range of qualifications and pathways are available to our students, maximising their opportunities for success.
|
Qualification |
Details |
|
GCSE |
AQA English Language |
|
GCSE |
AQA English Literature (aspirational) |
|
Entry Level Certificate |
Step Up to English Silver and Gold Award |
|
Unit Awards |
AQA Literature Unit Awards |
Subject Curriculum Overview: Key Stage 4
|
Year |
Topics |
|
10 |
● Step Up to English Component 1 and GCSE Language Paper 2 Transactional Writing: Entry Level Certificate (ELC) in English Language to establish a secure foundation in reading and writing fiction, integrated with transactional writing and a newspaper project.
● A Christmas Carol: developing more advanced reading skills and knowledge of English Literature ● GCSE English Language Paper 1 Writing: building on foundation of writing skills from ELC; focus on more challenging skills of punctuation variety, language features and meeting the GCSE mark scheme criteria ● GCSE English Language Paper 1 Writing: building on foundation of reading skills from ELC; focus on more challenging skills of analysis and evaluation and meeting the GCSE mark scheme criteria ● An Inspector Calls: building on conceptual and background knowledge from KS3 and aspiring to GCSE Literature ● English Language Paper 2 Reading: application of reading skills and knowledge to challenging older texts; focus on writers’ perspectives and comparison |
|
11 |
● Macbeth: drawing upon conceptual and background knowledge of Shakespeare and play genre from KS3 and aspiring to GCSE Literature
● Poetry Anthology: Power and Conflict cluster aspiring towards GCSE Literature
● GCSE English Language Paper 1: consolidation and preparation for external exam
● GCSE English Language Paper 2: consolidation and preparation for external exam
● Consolidation and revision of English Literature texts with a context focus and exam skills in preparation for external exams |