English

At South Charnwood High School, our department is dedicated to instilling a profound love for language and literature in our pupils, nurturing their growth into successful, well-rounded citizens who recognise their worth and potential beyond our school. 

Key Stage 3

Our updated Key Stage Three (KS3) curriculum reflects the dynamic world we live in. Every day brings new challenges for our pupils, highlighting the need for resilience, understanding healthy and unhealthy relationships, effective communication, and leadership skills. 

Through carefully chosen texts (novels and drama) and poetry, we guide pupils in exploring the literary canon to deepen their understanding of the world. This curriculum is seamlessly integrated with the school’s Future Award, ensuring that every lesson highlights how English contributes to building character and fostering respect within the school community. We believe that to help our pupils succeed, we must bring opportunities directly to them.

Our teachers are experts at developing powerful relationships with pupils, laying the foundations for learning to express themselves effectively—correctly, appropriately, and with feeling. Reading, writing, listening, and speaking are all given equal importance. Drama and discussion are valued as highly as reading and writing, ensuring a balanced approach to language learning. Through our pupil-friendly fact files and learning journey, this holistic emphasis equips our pupils with the skills they need to communicate effectively and confidently in all aspects of their lives.

Take a look at what our pupils will study:

English Learning Journey

Here is what they will see in lessons for each corresponding unit:

Key Stage 4

At Key Stage Four (KS4), the department operates the WJEC Eduqas GCSE specifications for both Language and Literature. 

The department interleaves language and literature content throughout Year 10 and 11. 

A breakdown of our curriculum at KS4 can be viewed here: KS4 Curriculum Map

For pupils’ GCSE in literature, they will study ‘Blood Brothers’ by Willy Russell; ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by William Shakespeare; ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens and a selection of poetry selected by the exam board, Eduqas. The themes of our poetry selection are time, love, war, nature and place. 

These topics span across two papers:
Component 1 – 2 hours;
Component 2 – 2 hours and 30 minutes. 

For pupils’ GCSE in language, they will explore a series of reading and comprehension tasks, as well as participate in a Non-Exam Assessment (NEA) speaking and listening presentation. They will read a selection of extracts from modern stories across a wide range of genres. In addition, a series of non-fiction extracts from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. 

These topics span across two papers:
Component 1 – 1 hour and 45 minutes;
Component 2 – 1 hour and 45 minutes;
Component 3 which is the speaking and listening presentation (delivered in Year 9).

Further details regarding the specifications can be found here:
English Literature
English Language

Home work KS3 & KS4

At South Charnwood High School, the department see value in offering homework that enhances pupils’ exploration of our curriculum. Additionally, a range of activities are selected appropriately, considerate of abilities and time so that their work within school is complemented.

At KS3, this variation comes in the form of homework sheets, distributed to pupils by their teacher at the beginning of each unit/term. Pupils will be set weekly homework, but this may vary for groups that are split between two teachers. The type of feedback given to pupils for homework efforts is at the discretion of their teacher.

Here is a sample of homework sheets for the first half-term of 2024/2025:

At KS4 (GCSE), homework is a little more flexible, considerate of each group’s needs. Each teacher greatly encourages the use of online platforms such as Seneca or Tassomai (all pupils have access to these – please see your teacher if you need a reminder). Further to this, pupils regularly engage in key quotation recall, revision of methods and techniques, revision of key texts/genres and decoding of exam questions for Literature and Language (where appropriate).  English Pupil Premium Statment of Practice.

Assessment & Feedback

Assessment and feedback throughout KS3 and KS4 is now more flexible than ever before, offering more chances for pupils to revisit topics due to rapid interventions made through knowledge-check quizzes. The department operates pupil-friendly fact files that offer pupils the chance to reflect on how well they believe they are performing in a particular unit. This forms part of our student voice too. 

For KS4, pupils have assessment folders where key pieces of work will be stored throughout their two-years with us at GCSE. These assessments will be their best pieces of work and will help to form judgements and predictions of their examination outcomes.

GCSE English Detailed Subject Information