Department overview

Our English departments aims to foster a love of language, with a passion for respecting the world and others around them. Through a variety of texts students will experience the lives and views of others in a variety of contexts to build respect and compassion. Students will understand that writers craft texts for purpose and audience, and they will have the knowledge and skills they need to explore texts effectively. Students will themselves write for a range of purpose and audience, using clear and effective language, structural and grammatical choices. Students will be imaginative, articulate and appreciative of language through access to an engaging and challenging curriculum; and will be developing into effective and ambitious communicators, both through written and verbal channels. We aim for every student to have a sense of the social and historical issues around texts and topics and an understanding of their impact on us today. In this way, our students will be reflective thinkers able to formulate and articulate their own well-considered views and will be able to take action to contribute successfully to the wider world as active citizens.

Key Stage 3 curriculum

We have developed a wide and rich Key Stage 3 curriculum that is rooted in the requirements of the National Curriculum, and that offers pupils the opportunity to read diverse texts and develop their ability to write with technical accuracy for a range of audiences and purposes. We strive ambitiously to develop pupils’ reading, writing and oracy skills, giving them a solid foundation for later in life.

• Our curriculum in Year 7 builds on the knowledge and skills pupils have learned in Key Stage 2. Students will learn about the history of story and the importance of story in developing a sense of cultural identity. Students will explore a range of autobiographical and narrative texts, including Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’, as well as a wide range of poetry.
• Our curriculum in Year 8 further develops pupils’ critical, analytical and evaluative skills and builds on knowledge and skills learned in Year 7. We also aim to give students a developed sense of genre and structural archetypes in this year through study of the Gothic and Detective Fiction. Students will deepen their literary horizons and explore the power of allegory through Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and will also study their first full Shakespeare text – ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Students will further develop their writing and speaking skills and study fiction and non-fiction from a diverse range of writers.
• Our Year 9 curriculum focuses on how power is conveyed through text and how literature and language can be forces for good in the world. Texts become more challenging as we look at Dystopian fiction, Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ and Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ and use these to explore hard hitting and age relevant topics such as group think, personal integrity and ambition. We further build on the knowledge and skills students have learned in their first two years at St. Mary’s.

We are a proud reading school and the habit is embedded with regular reading lessons and visits to our library.

Key Stage 4 curriculum

Pupils build on prior learning which provides the platform for achieving their potential at GCSE. We follow the AQA syllabuses for both English Language and English Literature.

Each pupil will sit two exams in English language and two in English literature. Please refer to the Learning Programme documents for additional details. Our set texts for GCSE English literature are:

• Macbeth – William Shakespeare
• An Inspector Calls – J.B. Priestley
• A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
• AQA Power and Conflict Poetry Anthology

Key Stage 5 curriculum

Our A-level English Language and Literature specification draws on the academic field of Stylistics in order to create an integrated English Language and Literature course which brings together literary and non-literary discourses. This specification integrates literary and linguistic fields via shared concepts about the way language choices create representations, both in literary and non-literary texts: words create worlds, both in literature and elsewhere. This specification offers opportunities for students to develop their subject expertise by engaging creatively, critically and independently with a wide range of texts. This subject prepares students extremely well both for further study and the world of work, as they become reflective thinkers, able to make reasoned and articulate judgements. Set texts for A Level study are:

• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• Mean Time Poetry Collection – Carol Ann Duffy
• AQA Paris Anthology
• A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
• The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Our BTEC in Creative Digital Media will provide students with an introduction to studying creative digital media. It is designed as a two year course providing the underpinning knowledge for the Creative Digital Media sector. The specification has been designed in liaison with experts from professional bodies, businesses and universities; it therefore supports progression into further education or employment in entry level roles and apprenticeships such as media production.

Students will study three units:

• Media Representations
• Responding to a Commission
• Pre-production and Film production.

Across these units they will develop a whole host of skills and practices.

For example, students will explore how stereotypes are used and subverted within media texts and the power representations have within society. Students will become familiar with media working processes by responding to a commission (which is the type of task you would undertake in the world of work).

They will also investigate how conventions of narrative storytelling are used by filmmakers, looking at formats and generic conventions. Students will then prepare for a film production by creating and gathering the materials and preparing the cast and crew. They will need to bring together a range of elements to successfully produce your product: camera, lighting, acting, direction and sound during the production phase, and successfully use post-production techniques to deliver a final outcome.

Catholic Social Teaching

In the English department, our values of faith, hope and love guide us to teach that differences of opinions are valid and that hope and love can be shown by advocating for our own viewpoints whilst listening and considering the opinions of others, by accepting differences and actively promoting tolerance and equality. Through the wide range of texts and tasks, we explore different cultures, experiences, and viewpoints. Our lessons reflect Catholic Social Teaching, focusing on dignity, peace, and care for the poor, with texts related to the human condition, like Oliver Twist and An Inspector Calls.

Enrichment opportunities

Quiet Board Games Club

Access: open to all
When: every lunchtime except Tuesday

Debate Club

Access: open to all
When: after school on Wednesday

Jewellery Making Club

Access: open to all
When: lunchtime on Wednesday

Useful websites

• BBC Bitesize
• Seneca Learning
• Mr Bruff YouTube Channel

Careers