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Intent

The context of The Leigh UTC and Inspiration Academy is unique. The local (urban) area suffers from high deprivation, where the largely white British students often have low aspirations. Our intake is boy-heavy and high SEND; students often begin school with low literacy levels, low resilience and other disadvantages. 

The English Department’s curriculum combats apathy and makes the study of English Language and English Literature relevant to everyone, providing the communication skills and cultural capital that will enable learners at The Leigh UTC and Inspiration Academy to become literate, independent (STEM) professionals in the future. Further, we equip students to continue the study of English in their future lives. 

We are inclusive and informed by the IB Middle Years Programme philosophy: to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better world.’ We believe that we achieve this through providing learners with vocabulary, rich texts and the opportunities to develop their critical skills along with their empathy. 

Students in Years 7-9 develop skills in analysis, exploring how writers use language and structure effectively, and making links between texts and their contexts; this allows them to understand social and cultural diversity. Our students justify their opinions and ideas using relevant terminology, guiding them towards advocating for themselves and others in the future. These students connect and evaluate texts and ideas, fostering higher level thinking skills. Our KS3 students learn how to organise and support their ideas, and practise producing texts for different audiences, vital skills for later education and in the workplace. We explicitly teach students how to speak and write accurately, setting them up for working in formal contexts. Through KS3, we prepare them for the rigour of KS4, where they study prose, poetry, writings from the nineteenth century and Shakespeare.

Students in Year 10 and 11 undergo robust GCSE courses, in which they study high quality and challenging texts from a range of genres, building on the critical and compositional skills that they have used at KS3. Students learn how to write clearly, competently and impactfully under time pressure – a key capability for later education and in the workplace. Overall, we develop learners’ abilities and resilience whatever their starting point. Reading and writing independently is an essential and a unique process to every child or young person, and our curriculum aims to support every student in reading and writing successfully.

Implementation

In Year 7, students have an overall focus on stories: they begin with a transition unit; last year this was autobiographical writing; we are now moving to the study of extracts from the fiction of JK Rowling (after student feedback), in order to foster a love of the subject from the beginning. During this module, students will recap reading and writing skills from primary, including how to comment on character, setting and ideas in texts, and how to communicate their ideas in accurate sentences. They produce a recount. Students proceed to the study of myths and legends from different cultures, in order to familiarise them with foundational stories in literature and broaden their cultural capital. Their analysis skills are developed in this unit. Students continue their ambitious first-year program with an introduction to Shakesepare and the study of a full comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This culminates in two assessed pieces, a journal entry from the point of view of a character, promoting empathic thinking, and an analysis if the relationship between two key characters in the play. Students finish Year 7 with the study of Soldier Dog, a novel set in WWI, to develop their understanding of context, their ability to comment on how writers structure texts, and an understanding of some of the key themes and ideas in the novel. Students produce a propaganda piece in the form of a formal letter, encouraging the development of non-fiction skills (a traditional area for development for students at this academy).

Stories through the ages: autobiography writing transition. 

  • ATL: Creative thinking skills: create original works. Communication: writing. 
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Written section of (auto)biography.

Stories through the ages: Myths and Legends

 

  • ATLs – Communication: Use subject specific language & Self-management: demonstrate perseverance. 
  • Assessment Criteria: A –Character analysis from myth / legend studied.

Stories through the ages: Introduction to Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

  • ATLs: Research: access information & Communication: Reading
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Diary entry from Viola or Sebastian about life after the shipwreck.

Stories through the ages: Introduction to Shakespeare and A Midsummer Night’s Dream 

  • ATLs: Communication: recognise the importance of an audience & Communication: Make inferences and draw conclusions.
  • Assessment Criteria:  A – Analysis of relationships between Helena and Hermia in AMND.

Stories through the ages:  Soldier Dog and propaganda

  • ATLs: Critical Thinking: Developing Arguments & Critical thinking: recognise bias. 
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Anti-war protest letter from propaganda stimulus

Stories through the ages: Soldier Dog and propaganda

  • ATLs: Critical Thinking Skills: Synthesise & Social: Share empathy, respect and support to others.
  • Assessment Criteria: A – Written analysis of Stanley’s thoughts and feelings in the novel.

In Year 8, students focus on the theme of equality, diversity and inclusion, beginning with a unit on poetry of difference. They are exposed to a range of contemporary poetry, stimulating discussions on context and culture, and how groups and individuals deal with being marginalised. Students develop their knowledge and understanding of poetry as a form, and are equipped with the ability to comment on writers’ use of poetic techniques and form; this is assessed through a written analysis of a poem studied. Students proceed from here to study rhetoric and speech-making, from classical times to today; they focus on how oratory is used to tackle social issues and promote societal fairness; students write and deliver their own speeches. Students then study dystopian fiction, reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver and working on creating their own dystopian fictions. Throughout this unit, students develop their analysis (looking at how the theme of ‘community’ is approached in the novel) and creative writing. To finish Year 8, students study a (GCSE-Level) complete modern drama text, Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, Students develop their skills in text transformation, adapting a segment of the play into prose, and begin to use evaluative skills in an assessment on to what extent society determines fate in the play. Throughout the year, students develop their reading stamina and their ability to use a broader range of writing skills in different registers.

Equality, diversity, inclusion through texts: Difference poetry 

  • ATLs: Critical Thinking: Consider perspectives & Communication: Use intercultural understanding to interpret others.
  • Assessment Criteria: AD – Written analysis of how inequality is presented / challenged in poem

Equality, diversity, inclusion through texts: Speeches and rhetoric

  • ATLs: Social skills: listen to others & Research: communicate using a variety of media and format.
  • Assessment Criteria: BC – Speech delivered to group promoting quality, diversity, inclusion agenda.

Equality, diversity, inclusion through texts: The Giver 

  • ATLs: Creative Thinking: Ask What Ifs and create hypotheses & Communication: Writing
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Opening of a piece of dystopian fiction.

Equality, diversity, inclusion through texts: The Giver 

  • ATL: Critical Thinking: Analyse & Critical Thinking: Inquire
  • Assessment Criteria: A – Written analysis of how the community is presented as dystopian.

Equality, diversity, inclusion through texts: Blood Brothers

  • ATLs: Creative thinking skills: Use existing works in new ways & Self management: develop new skills. 
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Re-creative piece on a scene from Blood Brothers.

Equality, diversity, inclusion through texts: Blood Brothers

  • ATLs: Critical Thinking: Evaluate & Communication: Structure and organise information
  • Assessment Criteria:  A – Written evaluation of to what extent social class is responsible for tragedy in the play.

In Year 9, students read from our literary heritage, beginning with the pre-GCSE study of a complete Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet, looked at through a lens of gender. Students are assessed through an analytical essay on this theme and a transactional writing piece (usually an article) on this theme. Students read a contemporary novel with a Victorian Gothic setting (The Woman in Black) alongside extracts from original nineteenth century Gothic fiction, developing their understanding of C19 language and sentence structures. Students write the opening of a Gothic narrative, developing their skills in constructing a complete narrative / narrative section, and write a comparative essay looking at a theme in the novel and an extract. Students finish Year 9 with a unit on literature from around the world, this year centring on the black American experience; in addition to producing a further essay, students practise writing descriptively from a stimulus, a key GCSE level skill.

Our Literary Heritage: From Shakespeare to Globalisation: Romeo and Juliet and transactional writing. 

  • ATLs: Communication: take notes and paraphrase & Creative thinking skills: use existing texts in new ways. 
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Article on gender roles and expectations

Our Literary Heritage: From Shakespeare to Globalisation: Romeo and Juliet

  • ATLs: Communication: use intercultural understanding to interpret others & Critical thinking skills: consider perspectives.
  • Assessment Criteria: A – Written analysis of how gender is presented in the play.

Our Literary Heritage: From Shakespeare to Globalisation: The Woman in Black and Gothic extracts. 

  • ATLs: Critical thinking skills: connect ideas & Communication: Make Connections between sources.
  • Assessment Criteria: A – Written comparison (linked to context) of how the writer creates tension in Gothic fiction.

Our Literary Heritage: From Shakespeare to Globalisation: The Woman in Black and Gothic Fiction Writing.

  • ATLs: Communication: Writing & Critical Thinking: Combine knowledge, understanding and skill.
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Short Gothic / horror narrative.

Our Literary Heritage: From Shakespeare to Globalisation: Literature Around the World.

  • ATLs: Critical thinking skills: develop arguments & Communication: use intercultural understanding to interpret others. 
  • Assessment Criteria: A – Comparative essay linked to context of a poem from a different culture.

Our Literary Heritage: From Shakespeare to Globalisation; Literature Around the World. 

  • ATLs: Communication: Use a variety of writing techniques & Creative Thinking Skills: Create Original Works
  • Assessment Criteria: BCD – Description (interesting perspectives and structures) based on stimulus.

Schedule of Learning

  • Module 1: AIC / Paper 1 Reading
  • Module 2: ACC / Paper 1 Writing & Assess AIC / ACC and Paper 1
  • Module 3: Power and Conflict Poetry / Paper 2 reading
  • Module 4: Power and Conflict Poetry / Paper 2 reading
  • Module 5: Paper 2 Writing / Spoken Language Endorsement / Unseen poetry
  • Module 6: Spoken Language Endorsement / PPE  Paper 2 / Paper 2

Year 11 Legacy Schedule of Learning

  • Module 1: Power and Conflict remaining poems / Unseen poetry.
  • Module 2: Revision Blood Brothers and Paper 2
  • Module 3: Spoken Language January / Revision based on GAP analysis
  • Module 4: Revision based on GAP analysis.
  • Module 5: Gap analysis review and Exam prep
  • Module 6: GCSE Examinations

 

Year 11 New Schedule of Learning

  • Module 1: Macbeth / Paper 1 Revision
  • Module 2: ACC Revision AIC revision / PPE Paper 1 both.
  • Module 3: Revision based on GAP analysis.
  • Module 4: Revision based on GAP analysis.

Schedule of Learning

  • Module 1: AIC / Paper 1 Reading
  • Module 2: ACC / Paper 1 Writing & Assess AIC / ACC and Paper 1
  • Module 3: Power and Conflict Poetry / Paper 2 reading
  • Module 4: Power and Conflict Poetry / Paper 2 reading
  • Module 5: Paper 2 Writing / Spoken Language Endorsement / Unseen poetry
  • Module 6: Spoken Language Endorsement / PPE  Paper 2 / Paper 2

Schedule of Learning

  • Module 1: AIC / Paper 1 Reading
  • Module 2: ACC / Paper 1 Writing & Assess AIC / ACC and Paper 1
  • Module 3: Power and Conflict Poetry / Paper 2 reading
  • Module 4: Power and Conflict Poetry / Paper 2 reading
  • Module 5: Paper 2 Writing / Spoken Language Endorsement / Unseen poetry
  • Module 6: Spoken Language Endorsement / PPE  Paper 2 / Paper 2

Curriculum End Points

Sustain learning from Year 7-9, and develop with

  • Understanding of a wide range of nonfiction text types, including leaflets, reviews and digital texts.
  • Etc.

Sustain learning from Year 7-9, and develop with

  • Knowledge of plot, characterisation, theme in J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls (core GCSE Literature text). 
  • Etc.

Sustain learning from Year 7-8, and develop with

  • Understanding of developed range of language techniques including e.g. sibilance. 
  • Understanding of how and why writers shift focus across texts to impact readers. 
  • Understanding of how whole texts are structured including deliberate use of paragraphs, range of discourse markers and textual cohesion (linking paragraphs with embedded discourse markers, for example). 
  • Ability to write articles as well as formal letters and speeches (GCSE Language skills), adapting register for these texts. 
  • Ability to demarcate sentences using full stops and commas correctly. Use of the colon, semicolon, ellipsis and dash. 
  • Use a range of different accurate sentence types (e.g. Alan Peat models) to have an impact on readers / audiences.
  • Understanding of how a range of poetic techniques such as enjambment, caesura, metre, stanza length / structure and rhyme schemes are used. 
  • Understanding of the conventions of some forms of poetry across time (sonnets, free verse, the dramatic monologue etc.)
  • Understanding of dramatic devices e.g. a prologue plays (Romeo and Juliet). Basic understanding of characters as constructs and as plot devices. 
  • Understanding of some aspects of 18/19th century social, religious and political backgrounds and how these link to texts (Gothic unit).
  • Understanding of conventions of the genre that is being studied and how these link to contemporary social, political, scientific context (the Gothic)
  • Understanding of how writers create atmosphere and tone through a variety of techniques. 
  • Consideration of how different readers / audiences might respond to texts. 
  • Understanding of conventions of different forms of poetry across time (sonnets, free verse, the dramatic monologue etc.)
  • Understanding of the use of narrative techniques such as flashbacks and foreshadowing. 
  • Reading: decoding, comprehension, inference, independent analysis and evaluation, comparative analysis skills between texts; reading independently with skill and led by own interests. 
  • Knowledge of how writers craft sections of texts e.g. opening, endings, to interest readers. 
  • Understanding of developed character types e.g. the paterfamilias in Romeo and Juliet. 
  • Basic understanding of feminism and feminist interpretations of texts (Romeo and Juliet), and how these influence readers’/audiences’ interpretations of texts.
  • Know what Machiavellianism is, and understand how Machiavelli’s ideas influenced the creation of literary characters (Romeo and Juliet). 
  • Some understanding of C16/17 concepts of the Great Chain of Being and of religious tensions in England during this period. 
  • Writing a comparative analysis (GCSE Literature skill).
  • Independent creative writing work from stimulus (GCSE Language skill). 
  • Independent proofreading and editing of work.

Sustain learning from Year 7, and develop with

  • Understanding of a wider range of language techniques used for purpose in different types of writing: introduction of contrast/ juxtaposition, personification, the pathetic fallacy, repeated phrases and anaphora, in fiction and non-fiction writing. 
  • Selecting relevant textual details to justify ideas and opinions; understanding that authors’ perspectives are influenced by their contexts. 
  • Writing an analysis of themes (e.g. inequality in poetry) and emerging concepts / ideas in a text (e.g how a sense of the dystopia is conveyed in The Giver.)
  • Different forms of writing: imaginative and transactional writing for impact. 
  • Ability to write a speech as well as formal letters (GCSE Language skills). Understanding of formal and less formal registers in English. 
  • Understanding of how whole texts are structured including correct use of paragraphs and some range of discourse markers.
  • Ability to demarcate sentences using full stops and commas correctly. Use of the semicolon and ellipsis. 
  • Understanding of different sentence types (simple, compound, complex, minor) and forms (declarative, interrogative, imperative, exclamatory) including some patterning in/of sentences. 
  • Oracy and Spoken Language skills through production of speech.
  • Begin to understand a range of poetic techniques such as enjambment, caesura.
  • Begin to understand the conventions of different forms of poetry across time (sonnets, epic, free verse, the dramatic monologue etc.)
  • Begin to understand dramatic devices e.g. a chorus/narrator, songs in plays (Blood Brothers). Basic understanding of characters as constructs and as plot devices. 
  • Begin to understand the use of narrative techniques such as flashbacks and foreshadowing. 
  • Reading: decoding, comprehension, inference, some independent analysis and evaluation (Blood Brothers); reading for stamina (longer texts, more independence.)
  • Some knowledge of how writers craft sections of texts e.g. opening, endings, to interest readers. 
  • Simple understanding of the origins and conventions of tragedy (Blood Brothers).
  • Knowledge of the context of classical literature, post-WWII literature and the writings of marginalised groups in the late C20/ early C21. 
  • Understanding of themes – big ideas that run through texts. 
  • Proofreading and editing of work.
  • Understand basic language techniques used for purpose in different types of writing (eg: figurative techniques such as similes, metaphors, emotive language and semantic fields used in fiction and non-fiction writing). Knowledge of some persuasive techniques (rhetorical questions, tricolon, sound effects like alliteration for emphasis). Basic word classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb). 
  • Selecting simple relevant textual details to justify ideas and opinions – basic understanding of an author’s intentions and readers’ responses. 
  • Be able to write a basic analysis of character, setting and ideas in a text; synthesise some ideas from across a text, e.g. how character changes in Soldier Dog.  
  • Understand differences between different forms of writing: imaginative and transactional writing.
  • Knowledge and understanding of basic conventions of different forms of text in English e.g. A Midsummer Night’s Dream play form, Soldier Dog novel form, poetry (stanzas, lines, rhyme and rhythm).
  • Knowledge and understanding of basic narrative structures (e.g. opening, climax, resolution) and roles of the protagonist / antagonist (Myths and Legends). 
  • Writing a formal letter (GCSE Language skill). Basic understanding of formality and Standard English. 
  • Basic understanding of character types e.g. heroes in Myths and Legends. 
  • Basic understanding of how whole texts are structured including correct use of paragraphs and basic discourse markers.
  • Ability to demarcate sentences using full stops and commas correctly.
  • Understanding of different sentence types (simple, compound, complex with basic  subordinate clauses, sentences beginning with adverbs or adjectives). 
  • Reading: decoding of texts, comprehension, inference and resilience (meeting reading deadlines)
  • Simple analysis of how writers use description to create characters and settings.
  • Basic understanding of English literary heritage – Shakespeare’s impact.
  • Knowledge of the context of Shakespeare’s theatre, WWI for Soldier Dog, and basic biographical information and context for shorter texts studied. 
  • Understanding of basic themes – big ideas that run through texts.
  • Understanding texts are written from different points of view for different purposes.
  • Basic proofreading and editing of work.