English

In 2007, the English department at Hasmonean was judged by Ofsted to be:
"Outstanding in every category with no significant areas for improvement".

The vision of this evolving and hardworking department is to continue to develop and to meet the challenges of the New National Curriculum at Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 with the same ambition, dedication and excellent results which have characterised English at Hasmonean up to and including the present time. We continue to invest heavily in our continued success, through a rigorous recruitment policy, a commitment to best practice amongst our highly skilled and dedicated team and through an ambitious programme of study, developed 'in house', by teachers who love literature, which both meets and exceeds the demands of the National Curriculum at all Key Stages.

English is taught across the school from Years 7 to 13. From September 08, targeted setting is in place for all Key Stage 3 classes and Year 7 students will sit a test within the first two weeks of the Autumn term, which will enable the department to determine a setting which will support their individual needs. Regular monitoring of student progress ensures that a student is in the correct setting at any given stage of his or her development and scope for movement between class sets is built into our process. There is extra help for some students at Key Stages 3 and 4 and Teaching Assistants are a regular and consistent feature of teaching and learning in the classroom. The Year 7 curriculum aims to consolidate what will have been learned in primary school and to introduce the students to activities and techniques of writing, comprehension and presentation, which form the basis for KS3 and GCSE study.

Teachers

• Mr G. del Vecchio, Director of English
• Miss M. Jory, Deputy in English
• Mr A. McClusky
• Mrs L. Gishen
• Miss L. Hirst
• Mrs H. Waldman
• Mr T. Wolcott
• Miss N. Bard

KS3

Year 7

An Introduction to English Studies: Britain and the British; England and English

The unit addresses Anglo Saxon, Greek and Latin influences on the English Language; it approaches the question of nationality through prose, poetry, journalism, biography and drama-based activities and reflexively this process will expose students to a variety of writing genres.

Sonnets and Ballads

This unit provides an introduction to Shakespeare and to the structuring of poetry. Students will explore the art of story-telling through verse and be trained to identify and interpret stylistic features. Students will develop creative writing skills within a disciplined structure and through performance.

Novel: Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo and War Poetry

Students will study the art of narrative technique, including structural devises within the novel form. They will explore layers of meaning, character relationships and authorial intention through interpretive reading. Students will develop persuasive writing techniques as well as descriptive writing techniques through creative writing tasks attendant on their study of the novel. In addition to their study of the novel, students will also study a selection of war poetry.

Drama: scenes from Sheridan's The Rivals, Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Shaw's Pygmalion and John Godber's Teechers.

This unit will explore developments in drama and provide an introduction to forms of dramatic literature at several key points in theatrical history. The students will explore the texts both academically as readers and stylistically through drama. Essay writing skills will be further developed through interpretation of dramatic devices and their effects.

Media

Students will explore various forms of media communication with an emphasis on types of newspaper journalism. They will explore the differences between fact and opinion, analyse informative and factual writing and explore bias in journalism and how to be alert to it. Students will look at visual presentations and learn to interpret image, presentation and layout in combination with text. In this unit, students will develop their informative as well as persuasive writing techniques and be encouraged to present these skills through use of ICT.

Year 8

In Year 8 students, will follow a programme of study which will accelerate learning by focusing on skills tested for SATs in Year 9.

Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Students focus on key scenes and explore themes, stylistic features and structural devices in the text through close detailed interpretive reading, and drama-based activities. The unit will combine a study of the text as poetry.

Creative Writing

Students develop their creative writing in a variety of forms: descriptive, dramatic, journalistic, diary and epistolatory (letter-writing). Drama is woven carefully into the scheme of work where its impact is desirable for inspiring the students' creative impulses. The unit is evenly weighted between Reading and Writing and the students are thoroughly grounded in narrative technique and stylistic features before they begin to consolidate their learning and develop new skills through their own creative writing.

Novel

I'm the King of the Castle by Susan Hill, Skellig by David Almond or Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. Here students explore layers of meaning as well as novelistic techniques through fine and condensed writing. Here the students' critical faculties, interpretive and essay-writing skills are further developed.

Preparation for SATs

Students will study past SATs papers in anticipation of SATs in Year 9. Students will analyse unseen fictional and non-fictional texts and interpret stylistic and thematic features as independent learners. Students will learn to write to persuade and to inform through a process of speaking and listening and through the study of persuasive and informative texts.

Year 9

Students begin Year 9 by preparing for the GCSE English Language Paper during the Autumn Term. This consolidates and develops the skills required for the SATs Reading and Writing Papers, while anticipating English Language at GCSE. In addition, students will study (either Cluster 1 or Cluster 2 of) the 'Poetry from Different Cultures' section of the GCSE syllabus for English Language).

SATs

Shakespeare: In the Winter Term, students will prepare for the SATs in earnest with their study of The Tempest in which the students are prepared rigorously to respond to and engage with matters of style, language, theme, structure and dramatic interpretation.

Students will revise how to approach the Reading and Writing Papers for SATs and consolidate their interpretive, creative, persuasive and informative writing skills for the exams.

Post exams, students will complete the English Language course by the end of the academic year.

KS4

Year 10 (GCSE)

• Original writing (coursework for English GCSE)
• Pre-1914 drama (coursework for English Literature GCSE)
• Pre-1914 prose (coursework for English and English Literature GCSEs)
• Shakespeare (coursework for English and English Literature GCSEs)
• Media (coursework for English GCSE)
• Preparation for English Paper 1
• First mock exam - Paper 1
• Speaking and Listening 1
• Speaking and Listening 2.

Year 11 (GCSE)

• Poetry from the AQA Literature Anthology for English Paper 2 (either Cluster 1 or Cluster 2 of the 'Poetry from Different Cultures' section)
• Poetry from the AQA Literature Anthology for the English Literature Paper (either Armitage and Duffy or Heaney and Clarke plus pre-1914 poetry)
• Preparation for English Papers 1 and 2
• Second mock exam - Papers 1 and 2, including an element of the Literature Paper
• Post 1914 exam novel (Of Mice and Men or To Kill a Mockingbird)
• Speaking and Listening 3.

Post 16

The new curriculum at Key Stage 5 places far more emphasis on independent study. The curriculum is indeed exciting, however students and their parents should be aware that A Level English Literature from September 2008 will bear a much closer resemblance to undergraduate study than the traditional A Level. The demands of the course are onerous and graduates of Year 11 are given a reading list before the summer holiday to be completed in advance of the first term of Year 12, in order to be suitably prepared for the course. A genuine enthusiasm for reading and for writing about what one reads is a basic requirement for undertaking the course.

Year 12 (A/S)

Year 12 students follow the Edexcel A/S course in English Literature (8ET01).

Unit 1: Explorations in Prose and Poetry (assessed by examination)

Section A: Unseen Prose and Poetry.

Section B: Texts studied - Howards End by E.M. Forster, The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate, Poems on the theme of Work from The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry.

Unit 2: Explorations in Drama (assessed by coursework)

Explorative Study: How does Shakespeare transcend the boundaries of genre in Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream to reflect upon the nature of society?

Creative critical response: Compare and contrast the presentation of a scene in Hamlet in two different film versions of the play.

Year 13 (A2)

Year 13 students follow the Edexcel Advanced GCE course in English Literature (9ET01).

Unit 3: Interpretations of Prose and Poetry (assessed by examination)

Section A: Unseen Poetry and Prose

Section B: Texts studied on the theme of War

Spies by Michael Frayn (Prose text), a selection of poems from 101 Poems Against War (ed. Paul Keegan and Matthew Hollis), Poems from the War section of Here to Eternity (ed. Andrew Motion).

Unit 4: Reflections in Literary Studies (assessed by coursework)

Topic: An exploration of how language is shaped under the expansion of Empire.

Texts studied: Translations by Brian Friel and The Tempest by Shakespeare. This study is underpinned by reading and understanding the linguistic principles of Saussure.