English Teaching Staff
- Mrs A Bradley: Curriculum Leader
- Mrs C Stamp: Second in Department
- Ms L Weir: KS3 co-ordinator
- Mrs S Britland
- Mrs J Boyd Gault
- Mrs T Freke
- Miss H Jeffrey
- Mr I Nicholls
In English we learn about communication. We develop our Writing skills to address a range of different audiences in a range of different styles. Through support and guidance, we become analytical readers who are able to extract the purpose of a writer’s work. We learn to deliver speeches, work in teams and listen, sensitively, to others
The English department at Oak academy is a large and thriving department. Students are supported to become resilient in their studies and are offered a varied curriculum. We are not afraid to challenge our students in Key Stage Three to ensure that they are well prepared when they enter Key Stage Four and beyond.
Key Stage 3
Our students in Key Stage Three will study a range of classic pieces of Literature spanning from Shakespeare and Dickens to Orwell and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Students will be immersed in both classic and contemporary Poetry and taught how to analyse authorial intent whilst gaining an appreciation for quality writing. Students will complete Writing Mastery units throughout Key Stage Three to gain a working knowledge on how grammar is used and will be given the opportunity to read for pleasure using a mixture of Reading Plus and Free Reading.
Year 7 English
Autumn Term: Oliver Twist
Spring Term: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Summer 1: Poetry Anthology
Summer 2: Voices and Choices
Grammar Content: writing in full sentences, identifying action and verb, subject-verb agreement for ‘to be’, regular and irregular past simple verbs, using capital letter accurately, avoiding fragments, using pronouns, how to paragraph, how to use speech properly, avoiding the use of fused sentences.
Writing Content: telling what happened, opening a story, writing about up to four images, writing with no images, structuring a story.
Year 8 English
Autumn Term: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Spring Term: The Tempest
Summer 1: Animal Farm
Summer 2: Descriptive Writing and Poetry
Grammar Content: clauses, subordinate clauses, sentence demarcation, speech, apostrophes, possessive pronouns.
Writing Content: problems solved stories, love stories, action stories, fantast quests, horror stories, poetic justice, Chekov’s gun, avoiding deus ex-machina.
Year 9 English
Autumn Term: Jane Eyre
Spring Term: Small Island
Summer 1: Poetry
Summer 2: Reading for Study
Grammar Content: subordinate clauses, quantifiers, defining and non-defining relative clauses, appositives, past perfect tenses, future perfect tenses, using conditionals.
Writing Content: argumentative writing, introducing examples, writing a thesis, writing an introduction, ‘because, but so counter -argument’, writing a complete non-fiction argument.
KS4 English
Pupils will sit AQA GCSE English Language and AQA English Literature at the end of year 11.
The GCSE courses provide pupils with access to a broad range of texts from the literary canon, building on their knowledge from Key Stage 3.
English Language
- Examination Paper 1: Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing (50%)
- Examination Paper 2: Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives (50%)
English Literature
- A Christmas Carol
- Poetry of Power and Conflict
- Macbeth
- An Inspector Calls
If you would like any further information on our English curriculum, please contact Mrs A Bradley (Curriculum Area Lead for English) [email protected]
GCSE Specifications
Links to the GCSE specifications for English can be found below:
