English and Media

The Faculty aims to develop engaged learners who will leave us as critical thinkers. We aim to enhance students' reading, writing, speaking and listening skills.

Key Stage Three English

Our Key Stage Three Curriculum is far more than merely a preparation for GCSE exams. It is a stand-alone, bespoke curriculum designed to engage, stimulate and inspire our students as well as develop the crucial skills needed in the modern world.

Students will study units on Descriptive Writing, Prose Fiction, Drama, Shakespeare, Non-Fiction, Poetry and Media. We also deliver shorter ‘micro’ units which focus on all of the main skills needed by both a writer and a reader. Each year, the students will return to each unit and further develop the skills learned the year before. For example, in Year 7 our Descriptive Writing unit teachers our students to describe a place; then in Year 8 our Descriptive Writing unit teaches them to craft a part of a horror story and finally in Year 9 our Descriptive Writing unit educates students in spy fiction and they are then able to complete an assessment where they craft a character and setting in the genre. Our students complete the same assessments so that we can show consistency across the board, but each class teacher will skilfully differentiate their teaching techniques in order to tailor the learning to the students’ needs in each group.

Our students complete an assessment for each of the units and we build up a detailed picture of their strengths and also their areas of weakness across the entire suite of skills. This helps us to intervene and support students where and when they need it, and it also enables us to tell you exactly how they are doing.

Students engage with their own learning using our Progress Passport which is designed to enable students to make rapid, sustained improvements to their work. It is hugely popular with students as it allows them to provide evidence of their own achievements across the year.

We also use Accelerated Reader to help students develop their reading skills and this has been proved to be successful in boosting students’ reading ages.

Key Stage Four English

All of our students study both GCSE Language and GCSE Literature. We work in partnership with the AQA exam board and use their courses. Our ethos of delivering these courses combines the teaching of both Language and Literature until Christmas of Year 11, and the process we use is a cyclical learning model. During units lasting two terms, we cover a literature text and also use the theme of this text to deliver the language skills the students will need. Across seven planned assessments, each unit therefore covers all of the skills vital to the students’ success. The way that our curriculum is planned then means that students return to these skills again and again (and again!) and each time use their teacher’s feedback to consolidate and move forward.

In terms of Literature texts, students will cover:

• Prose Novel: Either The Sign Of Four Or Great Expectations Or Jekyll and Hyde
• Play: An Inspector Calls
• Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth
• Poetry: 15 poems from an anthology (provided by the school)

Once they have worked through these four units, we then cover the speaking and listening component of the course which requires students to deliver a presentation of their choice and then hold a conversation with the examiner about it. We ask the students to use one of the themes of their four units to do this. The speaking and listening component is no longer part of the GCSE and the students will receive a separate endorsement on their certificate.

Following the speaking and listening endorsement we embark on the final push towards the exams where we work through a number of past paper in class under the guidance and support of the students’ class teacher.

We support our students in many ways. We hold a weekly drop in revision session on Tuesdays ‘The E Team’, provide students with bespoke revision booklets and encourage students to build their own literature notes with our tailor made homework menus. These menus are vital: they provide the students with every possible opportunity to create a superb set of notes which will then pay themselves back many times in the run up to the summer exams.

ICC English Youtube Channel

Please subscribe to our very own ICC English Youtube page. This is where we showcase the very best work that has been produced by our students and includes book reviews, videos of trips or special events we have organised and even the re-enacting of scenes from books we have loved.

 GCSE Media

GCSE Media Studies develops a range of analytical and practical production skills focusing on contemporary media. Through close study of moving image, print media and e-media, students are encouraged to develop an understanding of how different media act on an audience before designing and producing their own media products.

Media Studies makes use of a range of software including Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

Extra Opportunities

We offer a wide range of additional experiences and in the last year we have welcomed a variety of authors and storytellers including Adisa the Performance Poet, Master Storyteller Julian Armitstead, Graphic Novelist Neill Cameron, TV Scriptwriter Robert Rigby, Journalist and former England Football Team Press Liaison Officer Dan Freedman and many others. We believe that students should get to meet and talk to real life authors in order to show them writing and sharing experiences is accessible to all. We have also had over 100 students published in poetry and short story anthologies. We also offer a number of lunchtime clubs and support our Young Librarians to promote the many exciting opportunities the library has to offer.

Course Maps

Please see attachments below

Attachments:

English - Extending Confident Readers List.pdf	223 kB
English - Key Stage 3 Reading List.pdf	210 kB
Hot List.pdf	254 kB
TES must-read list - Mr Ford's assembly.pdf	1056 kB
1- English course map Year 7	75 kB
2- English course map Year 8	84 kB
3- English course map Year 9	101 kB
4- English course map Year 10	104 kB
5- English course map Year 11	87 kB
Media course map Year 10	70 kB
Media course map Year 11	73 kB