English
English Summer Reading Lists 2010:
English at the Marist is a lively, innovative department which promotes high standards of written and spoken English using a wide range of resources, teaching styles and approaches. The emphasis is on developing the potential of all pupils and enabling them to experience success at all levels.
Four specialist teachers teach across the ability range and work closely with the special needs co-ordinator when required.
KS3: Years 7 - 9
The department uses the National Curriculum as a basis for planning varied yet focused schemes of work for the first three years. There is the flexibility available for individual teachers to create and develop schemes of work which reflect their particular interests.
The focus in all three years of KS3 is on reading, writing, spelling and grammar enabling all pupils to become confident and competent in these areas before GCSEs. Expectations are high and all pupils will find themselves challenged and extended in English classes.
Target setting is an integral part of KS3: targets are negotiated with individual pupils which are then monitored and reviewed in the course of the school year. Pupil progress is closely tracked and used as a guide in setting targets, determining sets and later, entry levels for public examinations.
KS4: years 10 and 11
Year 11 pupils follow the AQA Specification A for GCSE English and GCSE English Literature. Results in both subjects are excellent with a 100% pass rate. Texts currently being studied for the literature examination and coursework include Romeo and Juliet, Journey’s End, The Crucible, Wuthering Heights, poems by Seamus Heaney, Gillian Clarke, Simon Armitage and the new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, as well as a wide range of poems from the 19th century and earlier.
Due to the 2010 changes to GCSE specifications, year 10 will now take Edexcel GCSE English Language and Literature. There is now a move to controlled assessment with coursework being written in supervised, timed conditions. Students in year 10 will study from a selection of the following fiction and non-fiction texts: Cormier’s Heroes, Touching the Void, Of Mice and Men, Great Expectations, Animal Farm, Jekyll and Hyde, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and An Inspector Calls.
KS5: Years 12 and 13
In the sixth form we offer English Literature AS and A Level. The department follows the OCR specification. In year 12 students will sit one written paper on F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Wilfred Owen’s poetry. Additionally they submit a 3000 word coursework folder of two essays. Current coursework texts in year 12 are Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, L P Hartley’s The Go- Between and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
In Year 13 the examination texts are Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, Othello and Doctor Faustus. The coursework texts are Heart of Darkness, selected poems by Derek Walcott and The Tempest. Results again are excellent, with students regularly going on to university to read English Literature either for single honours or as part of a joint degree.
Extra-curricular activities
The department organises a wide range of lunchtime and extra-curricular activities. Weekly clubs include a Film Society, a Lower School Debating Club and a Creative Writing Club.
The department organises regular theatre visits during the course of the academic year. These have included visiting Stratford-upon- Avon to see the RSC’s Arabian Nights (year 7), a poetry revision day for year 11, Othello, Sam Mendes’ The Tempest and The Duchess of Malfi for years 12 and 13, and a lecture day on examination texts for the sixth form. Additionally, we entered a year 7 team in The Times’ national Spelling Bee competition, and the year 8 debating team in the English Speaking Union’s ‘Great Climate Change Debate’. Last year we began a Gifted and Talented Public Speaking Competition, enhancing the speaking and listening skills taught in the classroom. We were also very proud that several of our students achieved success in creative writing competitions: one student won a national competition to see her work in print in The Times newspaper, and twelve year 7 students won a mini saga competition to see their short stories published in an anthology called ‘Mini Marvels’.