English
Head of Department: Mr Ruffles (mruffles@clwacademy.co.uk)
Curriculum intent
English is at the core of all subjects. Our English curriculum is built with breadth and depth, carefully sequenced to enable progression, with a particular focus on developing resilient and passionate readers.
Our ambition is to equip students with the skills needed to be critical, creative, analytical and purposeful writers, as well as maturing into proficient readers of a range of texts.
We have designed our curriculum to introduce and develop student’s knowledge of fiction, non-fiction, Poetry and Shakespeare, as well as a range of different contexts, literary movements, genres, techniques and concepts.
Students are given regular opportunities to demonstrate their skills and knowledge, as well as the chance to act on feedback.
English is a very diverse subject, important in its own right and the basis for so much understanding and learning across the curriculum. On a simple level, English encompasses the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening, However the subject also encourages students to imagine, explain, describe, analyse, review, persuade, argue, inform and advise in both writing and in speech. English helps young people to understand the world around them through the study of media in all its forms, such as advertising, film, television, newspapers and magazines.
Students are encouraged to read literature both for individual pleasure and as part of the course. Novels, short stories, poems and drama, both contemporary and classic, are read and studied. A variety of teaching and learning styles are used to encourage collaboration with others and confidence in the individual as a speaker. Students are encouraged with personal reading and the development of study and research skills through library-based programmes of study and access to IT rooms.
KS3
In Year 7 students study animal literature, autobiographical writing, drama, short stories, letter writing, writing newspaper articles and an introduction to Shakespeare: The Tempest
In Year 8 students explore travel writing, the Gothic tradition, drama, short stories, writing an epilogue, webpage writing, poems from other cultures, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night.
In Year 9 students study adventure and mystery, speeches (writing to argue and persuade), drama, conflict poetry, Henry V, Richard lll, King Lear and the Merchant of Venice.
Key Stage 3 reading
Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl
The Landlady, by Roald Dahl
The Adventure of the Speckled Band, by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Grimms’ Fairy Tales, by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
KS4
At Key Stage 4 all students will take Eduqas GCSE.
KS5
At Key Stage 5 students can study English Language or English Literature at A Level.
For more information click on the documents below.