Welcome to the English Department
At the heart of our English Faculty is a love of reading and writing creatively. We want to inspire and motivate students to ‘DARE’ to be remarkable readers and writers and have designed a curriculum that supports and challenges students.
Our curriculum:
- is informed by a secure understanding of students’ prior knowledge at KS2
- effectively prepares students for the future
- offers a mixture of reading, writing and speaking & listening opportunities
- makes meaningful links to potential career pathways
- ensures that students have an understanding of key literary time periods and movements
- is designed to include a wide variety of texts: prose/poetry/drama; old/new; male/female; white British/BAME/other cultures
- is built around high quality texts which are also enjoyable to read and study
- exploits opportunities to establish cross -curricular links to deepen understanding
- has challenge for all (regardless of prior attainment) at its heart
- develops confident readers who are able to read, understand, interpret and interrogate information presented to them in a variety of forms and settings
- develops articulate individuals who are able to write skilfully, critically and evaluatively
- promotes creativity, stamina and resilience
- enables teachers to exploit all opportunities to develop students’ cultural capital beyond their existing realm of experience
- provides staff with regular opportunities for professional discussion about subject knowledge and different approaches to teaching English
Meet the Team:
Mrs Sebbage - Head of English
Mrs Mansell - Assistant Subject Lead
Miss Jackson - Assistant Subject Lead
Ms Watson - English Teacher
Miss Henderson - English Teacher
Miss Churchill - English Teacher and Reading and Vocabulary Lead
Year 7
In Year 7 we study character, looking at a range of character experiences across key literary time periods. Key units of work include: Autobiography, An Introduction to Poetry, Rhetoric, Chinese Cinderella and Detective Fiction.
Year 8
In Year 8 we study a range of settings whilst developing our understanding of character. Key units of work include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Lie Tree and Romantic Poetry, Dystopian Fiction and Short Stories.
Year 9
In Year 9 we study a range of themes as well as progressing our knowledge of character and setting. Key units of study include: Race and Discrimination and Of Mice and Men, Love and Conflict in Romeo and Juliet and other texts and finally the Gothic with a key focus on Rebecca.
Year 10
In Year 10 we follow the AQA English Language and Literature course. Key units of study are: An Inspector Calls, Macbeth, English Language Paper 1 and Poetry (Love and Relationships or Power and Conflict). Students will also undertake their speaking and listening assessment this year when they have to produce a speech on a topic of their choice. It is imperative that students complete this assessment so that they can be entered for the English Language GCSE.
Please see below the curriculum statement and learning journeys for the English department.
If you have any questions regarding our English curriculum here at King's Academy Binfield, please email chloe.jackson@kingsacademies.uk if it is a year 7 or 8 query or katie.mansell@kingsacademies.uk if it is a year 9 or 10 query