Our English Department Mission…

Inspired by the teachings of Don Bosco, our mission is to cultivate well-rounded English scholars by the end of KS4/5, equipping them with a robust set of skills and qualities essential for both academic success and personal growth.

We aim to develop students who:

• Show a genuine enthusiasm for English and reading, appreciating a wide range of genres and forms.
• Communicate effectively both in writing and orally, with technical accuracy and a rich vocabulary.
• Write proficiently across various forms and structures, tailored to different purposes and audiences.
• Think critically and with empathy, understanding and addressing diverse global issues.
• Demonstrate strong listening and debating skills, articulating their ideas with clarity and confidence.
• Approach challenging learning experiences with resilience, creativity, and imagination.
• Exhibit an inquisitive, reflective, and ambitious mindset, fostering independence in their learning journey.

Guided by Don Bosco’s emphasis on creating “good christians and honest citizens”, our curriculum and our teaching is dedicated to nurturing these attributes. We strive to ensure our students leave as insightful, capable, and passionate individuals ready to engage with the world thoughtfully, embodying the spirit of compassion and intellectual curiosity that Don Bosco championed.

Key Stage 4 Overview

The overarching aim for English at KS4 is to create enthusiastic, independent, imaginative, critical and analytical writers and readers. Our curriculum aims to increase students’ enjoyment of reading, helping to nurture a lifelong appreciation of literature. Students should recognise the impact of language, structure and form on a text, whilst also demonstrating the ability to read easily, fluently and with good understanding. Our department seeks to develop the habit of reading widely and often, helping our students to:

• Acquire a wider working vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions that will equip them for all aspects of their working and academic lives.
• Appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage, celebrating all that is best in our literary canon and fostering an enthusiasm for authors, poets and playwrights that will stay with our students beyond their school career. From Shelley to Shakespeare, Larkin to Dickens, we hope that our students will love literature for life.
• Write clearly, accurately and coherently, adapting their language and style for a range of contexts, purposes and audiences. We prioritise the ability to communicate in all forms which will equip our students for life beyond Thornleigh and the wider working world.
• Use discussion in order to learn; they should be able to elaborate and explain clearly their understanding and ideas. We aim to provide our students with multiple opportunities to be competent in the art of effective speaking and purposeful listening, both in personal presentations and in group discussions/creative drama work.

The KS4 curriculum in English is constructed of the following components, culminating in entry for the EDUQAS English Language and EDUQAS English Literature examinations.

GCSE Literature

• Expansion and consolidation of the EDUQAS Poetry Anthology.
  Students will study and analyse the ‘people’, ‘nature’ and ‘power’ poems in this section of the anthology, together with continual reviews of the ‘war’ grouping from Year 9 KS4 transition unit ‘War and Words’. We will be enabling our students to cope with poetry analysis under timed conditions, with key quotes being learned and embedded effectively.
   
• Preparing for the GCSE Literature examination – extracts from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
  Students will work towards answering a question that commences with an extract and then widens to encompass the events of the whole text, taking into account the social and historical context of the novellas. While students will initially focus on key plot points, development of character and context, as they progress the focus will increasingly concern deeper analysis and more detailed awareness of the writer’s intent.
   
• Preparing for the GCSE Literature examination – Priestley’s An Inspector Calls.
  Students will have the opportunity to read the full play, focussing on character, context and plot, in class– alongside the English Department’s annual staff performance. Their further study comprises a consolidation of this knowledge through extract-based analysis which widens to encompass key themes and authorial intent. Students will be expected to know the plot structure in detail and to be able to express their ideas confidently without the text in front of them.
   
• Approaching the analysis of a pair of unseen poems.  
  Throughout, students will be building confidence through our continual modelling of how to access meaning through the language and structure of a poem. This will lead to comparing the ideas conveyed in two poems written about a similar theme.
   
• Preparing for the GCSE Literature examination – Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
  Again, this starts with an extract based analysis that widens to encompass key events and key characters. Students will be expected to know the plot structure in detail and to be able to express their ideas confidently without the text in front of them.

GCSE Language

• Reading comprehension
  Students will be identifying implicit and explicit meaning in both fiction and non-fiction texts that are chosen specifically by the examination board to pique their interest. Students will be analysing the variety of techniques employed by a writer to convey an idea or message and will develop their ability to locate and retrieve, interpret, evaluate and compare unseen texts.
• In the non-fiction aspect of the exam, students will be comparing the similarities and differences of ideas conveyed in two non-fiction texts, one written in the 19th century. This is a challenging skill that our students embrace as they negotiate a more formal and archaic style of writing.
   
• Narrative writing skills
  Students will be guided on how to create and craft a short piece of narrative writing to fit a prescribed title. Our students need to learn to create a coherent and engaging narrative under timed conditions and are given many creative and diverse opportunities to do so.
   
• Transactional writing
  Using a variety of style models, students will study how to create, craft and structure formal letters, speeches, reports, reviews, magazine articles and the text of persuasive leaflets.
   
• Spoken Language skills
  Students will create and perform an informative speech, dealing competently with the challenge of speaking in front of an audience and demonstrating their absolute confidence in taking questions from their peers on their chosen subject.