English

The English Curriculum at St Benedict’s aims to ignite a love of reading, writing and spoken language; this will allow our students to navigate successfully through school and into their lives beyond. We aim to nurture a love of Literature and reading for pleasure and a high level of competency in communicating effectively in both written and spoken language. Within English lessons we aim to provide students with rich opportunities to develop socially, emotionally, culturally, and intellectually so that they can see the world from other people’s perspectives, appreciating a world beyond their own. We work to equip our students with the skills and confidence to express and articulate themselves and to construct texts for a specific purpose, in the same way that ‘real writers’ do. We aim to help them become discerning listeners in both imaginative and real-world contexts. 
 

The KS3 curriculum is intended to provide students with a wide range of experiences which allow them to engage with poetry, prose, and drama, as well as fiction and non-fiction texts. Students are regularly provided opportunities to produce written and oral responses to a range of stimuli, sharing their opinions and developing perspectives in response to the opinions and experiences of others. 
Students at KS3 have a fortnightly library lesson which allows them to browse, borrow and return books and spend time focused on reading independently and/or reciprocally. During these lessons students regularly read aloud and are given feedback on their reading progress.  
‘The 200-word challenge’ is a core part of our KS3 curriculum providing students a fortnightly opportunity to write texts in timed conditions to build their confidence, stamina, creativity, and resilience. Teacher modelling, real-time feedback along with regular sharing and celebrating of good examples help to embed understanding of what excellent writing looks like against a diverse range of text types, styles, and stimuli. 
Our curriculum is designed to ensure that students access texts by writers from a range of historical, cultural, and social backgrounds. During KS3 students study modern novels, plays by Shakespeare and by contemporary writers, Victorian prose, and a range of poetry and non–fiction texts. The challenge and complexity of texts and tasks is gradually increased so that year 9 provides an effective springboard for GCSE study. 
Students are encouraged to develop confidence and articulacy through speaking and exchanging opinions. Opportunities for students to participate in group discussions, give speeches and share their work aloud are built into all programmes of study. 
 
Home learning at KS3 
Every child is expected to complete 30 minutes reading for home learning every week via Sparx Reader, an online reading platform. Sparx Reader helps every student to achieve regular independent reading pitched at an appropriate level of challenge. Your child’s home learning will be set on Friday at 9.00 am, and due the following Friday at 9.00am every week. 
Your child will be set a range of other home learning tasks to extend and consolidate classroom learning. These tasks might include, research, learning vocabulary or spellings, creating a mindmap, answering questions on a given text or learning a poem or passage off by heart.  

What can parents/carers do to support at home? 
Talk with your child about what they are learning.  
‘Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.’- Emilie Buchwald, educator, and author. Whilst your child is almost certainly too large to sit on your lap now they are at secondary school, being a reader and maintaining a reading habit yourself is a good way to encourage your child to read.  Talk about books together – about what you are reading and what they are reading. A recommended reading list is here: KS3 reading list (1).docx    
For longer pieces of writing or research, ask your child to talk through their ideas or plan through with you. Encourage your child to proof-read their work. Listen to presentations or talks they may be asked to prepare and ask them questions that require them to develop their ideas further.  
Listen to podcasts and audiobooks together. Long journeys offer a great chance to do this. 
Watch period dramas, particularly literary adaptations together. This will help to build cultural capital. You can find a list of good programmes to watch together here: Watch List 2021.docx 
Take your child to see theatre productions of plays we study or plays by the same authors. The Globe Theatre in London offers standing tickets for as little as £10 and there are often good plays on at local theatres such as The Mercury and The Ipswich Regent.     
The school subscribes to SpellZone – an online learning platform which can be particularly useful for students for whom English is an additional language who for those who struggle to spell accurately. Students can log-on and work through spelling courses independently, or work on specified sets of spellings.  
 

What will my child learn studying GSCE English Language?

The English Language course focuses on developing the skills for two exam components. Paper 1 requires students to read and answer questions on an extract from pre-twentieth-century fiction and to write an imaginative, narrative, or creative response.

Paper 2 will ask students to read and answer questions on twentieth and twenty-first century non-fiction. The writing section of this paper will ask students to produce a transactional response, for example: a letter, article, or speech.

To prepare for these papers, students will learn to read, analyse, evaluate, synthesise and compare a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts, these will include pre-twentieth century fiction and literary non-fiction, as well as speeches, journals, articles, and letters written since 1900.

The reading skills they develop help them become critical thinkers, applying their independent reading skills to a range of contexts and in turn developing their writing. Students will learn to write accurately and creatively to suit a range of purposes and audiences.

How is English Language taught?

English Language is taught by firstly developing students’ critical reading skills - learning to engage with texts by considering what they already know, understanding and developing vocabulary and considering the writer’s viewpoints and intentions. We develop student’s skills through showing them how to write and build their responses to develop their confidence and independence, raising the challenge as each student progresses.

Writing skills are taught by exposing students to a wide range of texts that showcase effective writing, helping them to shape their own compositions carefully to fit a specified purpose, making informed and effective choices in terms of vocabulary and sentence, paragraph, and whole text structures. Students are taught to draw on their own and others’ experiences to become imaginative, creative, persuasive, and cogent writers.

What will my child learn in GCSE English Literature?

We study the following texts:

‘An Inspector Calls’ by J. B Priestley

 ‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare

 ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ by RL Stevenson

Edexcel’s Conflict anthology of poetry

We also develop students’ confidence and ability in reading and responding to Unseen Poetry.

How is GCSE English Literature taught?

We study texts by reading and exploring them together in whole class groups.  We study the texts alongside the contexts in which they were written, considering writer’s viewpoints and perspectives, and exploring the extent to which texts are relevant to society today. We build a shared understanding of each text and explore key passages, imagery, and elements of structure through discussion, whole-class, small group, and independent work. Approaches include performing and reconstructing scenes, annotation of key passages and regular retrieval activities. We build up the skills of writing clearly and analytically about each text through modelling how to respond to exam style questions, initially with scaffolding and modelling which is built upon so that students can respond confidently and independently.  

Regular assessment opportunities are built into KS4 so that students are able to build the skill, strategy and resilience in order to write in timed conditions in their final examinations.     

 
Home learning at KS4

Every child is expected to complete 30 minutes reading for home learning every week via Sparx Reader, an online reading platform. Sparx Reader helps every student to achieve regular independent reading pitched at an appropriate level of challenge. Your child’s home learning will be set on Friday at 9.00 am, and due the following Friday at 9.00am every week.

Your child will be set a range of other home learning tasks to extend and consolidate classroom learning. These tasks might include: research, learning vocabulary or spellings, creating a mindmap, answering questions on a given text, annotating an extract or text, completing an exam style response, preparing a presentation or talk.

Students may also be set revision when they have assessments coming up. Often specific revision activities will be prescribed via ClassCharts but students are also encouraged to find revision strategies and approaches that suit their individual preferences.

What can parents/carers do to support at home?

As with KS3 students, talk with your child about what they are learning.

Talk about books together – about what you are reading and what they are reading. A recommended reading list is here:  KS4 reading list.docx

For longer pieces of writing or research, ask your child to talk their ideas or plan through with you. Encourage your child to proof-read their work. Listen to presentations or talks they may be asked to prepare and ask them questions that require them to develop their ideas further.

Listen to podcasts and audiobooks together. Long journeys offer a great chance to do this.

Watch period dramas, particularly literary adaptations together. This will help to build cultural capital. You can find a list of good things to watch together here: Watch List 2021.docx

Take your child to see theatre productions of plays we study or plays by the same authors. The Globe Theatre in London offers standing tickets for as little as £10 and there are often good plays on at local theatres such as The Mercury and The Ipswich Regent.

Our staff aim to provide an inclusive learning environment with high expectations and appropriate support in place so that students of all abilities and backgrounds can access challenging and enriching texts. In support of this aim, our Literacy Intervention Leader offers 1:2:1 and small group intervention lessons to any students who are identified as having a low reading age or who require extra support for other identified reasons. A range of literacy clubs and interventions are offered both before and after school to further support the development of reading. Form time literacy, which focuses particularly on shared reading of topical texts also aims to develop understanding, vocabulary, cultural capital and reading fluency.

Clubs to support reading skills

On Wednesday and Friday mornings, we offer a breakfast reading club for selected students. This provides them with an opportunity to strengthen peer relationships while developing their reading skills, particularly those that may lack the confidence to read aloud in class. The club has a warm and friendly atmosphere, allowing students to start the day in a positive and enjoyable way. Year 7s are invited on Wednesday mornings, and year 8 students on Fridays.

After-school reading clubs also run on a weekly basis, and although some students are targeted for this club, all are welcome to attend. Students may read in pairs or in small groups, helping to build confidence in reading aloud. Students are also given the opportunity to talk about the books they are reading, discuss various genres, and read from our collection of First News newspapers.   This allows them to find something they are interested in and to share it with the rest of the group.  Students also enjoy taking part in a crossword, building their vocabulary and spelling skills. Classes run on Mondays for year 7s and 8s and on Thursdays for years 9-11.

Reading Interventions.

Occasionally, students may need extra support to develop their literacy skills in order to enable them to reach their full potential in their GSCE exams (the minimum reading age in order to be able to access the exams is 15 years and 9 months).

When extra support is needed, students will be invited to have a once fortnightly intervention instead of their timetabled lesson.  The focus of these interventions may be reading and comprehension skills, SPaG or to provide extra support with their upcoming GCSE English exams.

Referrals for these interventions are normally as a result of teacher recommendations and may be short or long term, depending on the need.

Sparx Clubs

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we offer a space for students to complete their Sparx Reader home learning tasks.

From 8.15 on Tuesday mornings, Mrs Hunter opens room 4 and can provide laptops for students to use.

On Thursdays after school, the library is open until 4.15 for students to use the computers there.