English
Head of Subject: Ms J Bradley
Mayflower English Faculty is a vibrant and active one. Our focus is on the individual and providing an interesting and stimulating environment for all our students. We encourage a love of reading and across our curriculum, selecting texts from different times, places and people. Our students explore different genres and forms of writing and we encourage confident speakers and listeners who participate in debate, discussion and presentations.
Subject Vision
Our vision is to provide our young people with the opportunities, knowledge and experiences to write and read confidently in whatever context they encounter. We see language and literature in the classroom and beyond as a gateway to achievement.
The content of our curriculum includes a wide range of texts from different periods, places and traditions. We aim to value the diversity of contemporary British society and world literature, yet also acknowledge the entitlement of students to the literary canon. Our Year 7 students make a challenging transition where they are immersed in a number of different texts.
Our aim is to present students with cognitively rich texts and build students’ confidence in studying unseen texts. The “Let’s Think in English Programme” from King’s College London (studied once a fortnight in years 7 and 8) presents students with a diverse range of texts from fiction, film, poetry and drama. We always take as a starting point, texts which will engage and interest our students and choose texts which we regard either as culturally meaningful, or relevant to the context of our own students’ lives.
At the heart of our curriculum is a passion to select texts which engage our young people, with material which is relevant and thought provoking.
We also provide stimulating opportunities outside the classroom such as:
- Poetry competitions
-Drama club
-Public speaking workshops
-Theatre trips
-Book club
Key Stage 3 Intent and Implementation
In our Mixed Attainment grouping, we want all students to access the same high quality texts regardless of their starting point. The texts we choose for each year group are intended to be accessible and challenging; they are “low threshold, high ceiling” texts, providing both challenge and support.
Students study two Shakespeare plays, undertake an in depth study of a poet, and explore texts from the canon including Frankenstein, Dracula, Chaucer and a number of literary heritage short stories. Non fiction from earlier times is interleaved throughout our curriculum- the diary of Captain Scott, for example, when our students study “Voices of Adversity” or voices of the suffragettes through the novel Ruby in the Smoke.
Key Stage 4 Intent and Implementation
GCSE English language and GCSE English Literature
English Language
The course is assessed by two external examinations:
Paper 1: Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing (50%)
Reading questions on a literary fiction text
Descriptive or narrative writing
Paper 2: Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives (50%)
Reading questions on a non-fiction text and a literary non-fiction text
Writing to present a viewpoint
Plus: Speaking and Listening (0%)
Students will give presentations through the course and respond to questions, demonstrating their ability to use Standard English. A separate mark will be awarded for this unit – it does not contribute towards the GCSE grade.
EXAM BOARD: AQA
SPECIFICATION: 8700
For further details, please click on the link below:
English Literature
The course is assessed by two external examinations:
Paper 1: Shakespeare and the Nineteenth-Century Novel (40%)
Questions on two set texts, focusing on an extract from each text and the text as a whole.
Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry (60%)
Three questions: an essay on a modern prose or drama text studied in class, a comparison of two poems from an anthology studied in class, and a comparison of two unseen poems.
EXAM BOARD: AQA
SPECIFICATION: 8702
For further details, please click on the link below: