English - Sir Jonathan North College | Lionheart Educational Trust

Curriculum rationale:

Our vision is to nurture a passion for reading in our students so they read for pleasure across a wide range of genres and different cultures, to communicate effectively, to think critically and to problem solve in a timely manner within an academically challenging and stimulating environment. This includes Socratic Circles to develop student voice, critical thinking to develop metacognition and studying female writers to enrich students’ cultural and social awareness of the world around them and their place within it.

Our curriculum is the platform from which our students to articulate, communicate and express themselves as resourceful, creative and resilient citizens. In short, our curriculum is a curriculum for everyone underpinned by ten core offers to our student: teaching and learning is grounded in a rich heritage of literature; oracy and 4Rs are built into teaching and learning; Mastery of texts and techniques; guided class reading; vocabulary and knowledge rich and writing for different audiences and purposes. Each year’s schemes of work builds on the skills of the previous year to better equip and enable our students to respond to those challenges. Our KS3 curriculum is challenging. All students, regardless of ability, are entitled to achieve the very best that they can. We are a highly successful and ethnically diverse team. This has greatly enriched our teaching and learning and is reflected through our curriculum. Our diversity is celebrated as we learn together and from one another in a supportive, focussed, inclusive and innovative environment where everyone is a learner. We believe in pursuing excellence and equity for all.

Curriculum Design:

Our curriculum is designed to ensure that all students joining Sir Jonathan North will have a secure knowledge based understanding of the key elements of the English curriculum that will provide rich opportunities for all of our students to develop a passion for reading and writing, speaking and listening focusing on developing an informed personal response to English Language and English Literature that is creative, academic and technically accurate. Through a quality first teaching approach, students will be equipped with the skills, behaviours and habits to access opportunities to enable all students to make rapid and sustained progress throughout their five years.

The curriculum designed around securing deep understanding of key knowledge and developing academic literacy. Principles for ‘making the learning stick’ are incorporated, including regular low stakes retrieval practice, elaboration and interleaving of key concepts.

Curriculum Plan:

	Year 7	Year 8	Year 9
	Autumn Term Inspirational Women/ Heroes and Villains	Autumn Term Romance and Antipathy	Autumn Term Aspects of Narrative and Literacy Genres
Topics	Study of a novel: Ruby in the Smoke Speeches: Inspirational women	Shakespeare play Review based on a film, TV programme or a CD	A novel Travel writing
Key Retainable Knowledge and skills	Narrative methods, the writer’s craft, social, historical contexts Social context, dramatic method and style	Shakespeare’s themes, characters, language and stagecraft. Social/historical context Format and style of a review including PAF	Narrative methods. Social, historical contexts Format and style of a travel article including PAF. Research
Assessment	Literature essay focussing on characterisation informed by an extract	Essay based on an extract/scene	Evaluative literature essay based on an extract
	Spring Term Protest Writing	Spring Term	Spring Term
Topics	21st Century Non-Fiction Persuasive Texts Controversy and Socratic Circles	The Romantic poets Magazine articles – topical issues	An Inspector Calls War poetry Collection
Key Retainable Knowledge and skills	What / How / Why and a Non-Fiction vocabulary including PAF Critical thinking skills	Poetic devices. Social/historical context. Genre Format and style of magazine articles including PAF	Themes, characters, language and stagecraft. Modern drama Understanding themes, poetic devices, the social and historical contexts. Comparing poems
Assessment	Analysis of a non-fiction text focussing on the Writer’s Craft	Comparative essay on 2 poems. (Blake and Wordsworth)	Literature essay informed by an extract
	Summer Term Heroes and Villains	Summer Term	Summer Term
Topics	Collection of epic poetry and classical narratives Shakespeare	19th Century Short Stories Narrative Writing	War Poetry Collection Formal talk - functional
Key Retainable Knowledge and skills	Social, historical contexts and heroic traditions Shakespeare’s themes, characters, language and stagecraft. Social/historical context	Narrative methods. Social, historical contexts Narrative writing skills (grammar through writing)	Understanding themes, poetic devices, genre, the social and historical contexts. Comparing poems How to write and present a formal talk
Assessment	Analysing, writing and delivering a heroic speech	Thematic essay informed by an extract	Comparative analysis under timed conditions

	Year 10	Year 11
	Autumn Term	Autumn Term
Topics	Study of Macbeth Non-Fiction Writing Fiction Reading	Christmas Carol Non-Fiction Reading / Writing
Key Retainable Knowledge and skills	Shakespeare’s themes, characters, language and stagecraft. Social/historical context Informal / formal letter writing Information retrieval / impression / evaluative /writer’s craft question types	Narrative methods, dramatic method, the writer’s craft and social, historical contexts Informal / formal letter writing /
Assessment	Character evaluative essay Analytical study of an extract	Evaluative / thematic study informed by an extract Create a letter (functional / topical issues informed by community)
	Spring Term Revision and Exam Skills	Spring Term Revision and Exam Skills
Topics	Poetry Anthology Non-Fiction Writing informed by Non-Fiction reading Unseen Poetry	Macbeth revision Fiction reading and writing revision Unseen Poetry revision An Inspector Calls revision Anthology Poetry revision A Christmas Carol revision Non-Fiction reading and writing revision
Key Retainable Knowledge and skills	Understanding themes, poetic devices, genre, writer’s craft and the social and historical contexts. Comparing poems Article / speech writing and awareness of PAF Understanding themes, poetic devices, writer’s craft and genre. Comparison.
Assessment	1Single then comparative analysis Create a speech / article informed by Non-Fiction reading
	Summer Term	Summer Term
Topics	An Inspector Calls Narrative Writing – personal writing	Terminal examinations
Key Retainable Knowledge and skills	Modern drama, dramatic method, writer’s craft and social, historical contexts Narrative methods, PAF and writer’s craft
Assessment	Evaluative study informed by an extract Create a personal narrative based on real life

Curriculum Assessment:

At KS3 all students have three termly assessments and one Big Test at the end of each year.

Assessment follows College policy with students’ books marked twice per unit: one interim assessment and one end of unit assessment in line with dialogic feedback. Students act on the teacher’s purple pen prompts to challenge misconceptions, address any technical issues and give students an opportunity to improve their subject knowledge to help each student make progress from their starting point.

Feedback is implicit to all of our lessons and underpins the dialogic assessment process. This usually takes the form of questioning, time to reflect, retrieval practice, peer or self feedback and use of knowledge organisers.

The same assessment methodology is used at KS4 students, but students are measured against the 9-1 (GCSE) grading system and a culmination of timed writing, speaking and listening assessment and teacher assessment are taken into account when tracking a student’s working at grade.