English:

Subject Information Overview

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Curriculum
Area Staff Curriculum
InformationCurriculum
OverviewExam information for GCSE
qualifications in this Subject AreaKnowledge
Organisers

Curriculum Area Staff

Should you require more information about this subject area please contact:

Name: Mr Chris Wales
Position: Curriculum Area Leader
Email: cwa@selbyhigh.co.uk

Curriculum Information

English has a huge role to play in both your current education and your future life. Every career path and job you can think of is shaped by English and your ability to communicate effectively. Success in English will not only develop you within this subject, it will also act as a springboard for your success in every other area too. Your ability to be a critical reader, crafted writer and confident orator will give you the key skills to flourish in all aspects of school life. In addition, it naturally provides you with opportunities to develop your understanding of the world around you and key issues in the society we live in.

Beyond the range of texts you study, you’ll have the opportunity to develop your ability to explain, debate, persuade and challenge. You’ll consider the key themes that run through our lives as much now as they did in the times of Shakespeare or Dickens: relationships, conflict within the world, the importance of equality and tolerance, and of course your own identity. Ideas around love and death, friendship and family, respect and understanding – all of these will be integral to your understanding of the world in which we live.

In Year 7, you will have the opportunity to explore the theme of Identity and Experience. This will allow you to consider your own experiences through autobiographical and travel writing, whilst also considering a range of cultures and experiences through the novel Iqbal and a range of poetry. In the final term, you will then look at a timeline of literature to develop your knowledge of how texts (and people’s lives and experiences) have developed over time.

Year 8 then considers big ideas around ‘Justice and Oppression’. Themes of equality, injustice and prejudice are all considered through a range of different literary forms: the play Noughts and Crosses, Shakespeare’s Othello and the novel Animal Farm. Alongside this, you will have the opportunity to learn about real-life inspirational people who have challenged inequality and made a positive difference to the world by influencing change. In the summer term, you will focus on a range of Victorian literature, a time of huge social change.

In Year 9, you will study how literature considers ‘Power and Conflict’. Starting with Gothic literature, you have the opportunity to study a range of texts such as Dracula and Frankenstein, leading into the study of Macbeth. The reasons and consequences of conflict are then brought into the 20th century through a range of war poetry and short stories. As your knowledge and skills continue to develop towards GCSE study, the final term of Key Stage 3 then studies the musical Blood Brothers alongside a range of non-fiction texts.

At GCSE, you will take all the skills you have developed, along with the knowledge of how to study a range of literary forms and your understanding of a wide range of texts, and apply these across our key texts: Romeo and Juliet, An Inspector Calls, A Christmas Carol and a range of poetry from different time periods. You will also continue to develop your skills as a crafted writer in narrative and transactional forms, as a critical reader of both fictional and non-fictional texts, and as a crafted orator who is able to deliver and debate your own opinions on a number of key topics and societal issues.

Our curriculum is designed to allow you to reflect on and take pride in your own experiences whilst also preparing you for your future by broadening your knowledge of wider social and cultural contexts. We want you to continue a love of reading and a thirst for knowledge that you can take forward. Our aim is to equip you with the transferable skills and resilience that will enable you to be successful in your next steps. We want you to be able to adapt and excel in an ever-changing world, and our broad and balanced curriculum is designed to enable you to do just that.

Curriculum Overview

Below is a summary overview of the topics and their content that will be studied in each term by each year group. For more information about each topic, get your child to visit learning journeys and resources on the school online learning platform - Ready Steady Learn.

This updated curriculum overview is coming soon.

KNOWLEDGE ORGANISERS

A Knowledge Rich Curriculum at Selby High School

Research around memory suggests that if knowledge is studied once and not revisited or revised, it is not stored in the long-term memory.  This means that after one lesson, or revising for one test, the knowledge will not be retained unless it is studied again.  It won’t be recalled unless it is revisited frequently, which will embed it in the long term memory.  In the long term this makes recall far easier.  As part of home learning, students should be revising what they have been taught recently but also content they were taught previously.  Therefore as part of our strategy to embed learning over time we have started to develop knowledge organisers across all year groups and curriculum areas. These will provide key content and knowledge  allowing students to pre-learn and re-learn, a vital part of processing all the information required to be successful in the new style GCSE’s.

Instructions for using your knowledge organisers

KS3 = Years 7, 8 & 9
KS4 = Years 10 & 11

Below are the knowledge organisers for each topic in this subject.  These knowledge organisers will become embedded in the Learning Journeys for each topic as they are created on Ready Steady Learn.

Exam information for GSCE qualifications in this subject area

Click each link below to view the full specification:

Exam board: Eduqas

English Language

C1 - 20th Century Literature Reading and Creative Prose

C2 - 19th and 21st Century Non-Fiction Reading and Transactional Writing

C3 - Spoken Language. 

English Literature

C1 - Shakespeare & Poetry Anthology

C2 - Post 1914 Prose/Drama & 19th Century Prose & Unseen Poetry