English
Department Ethos
At Cams Hill School, the English Department want to enthuse, challenge and fill pupils with skills ready for life beyond school.
Our experienced teachers bring energy and excitement to our interesting KS3 and KS4 curriculums. All children have access to the same ambitious curriculum with high level texts and vocabulary.
Learn more about English at Key Stage 3
Our KS3 curriculum has been carefully planned to take you on a journey from the origins of Literature to modern days texts. Alongside this, pupils will gain and secure essay writing and creative writing skills to help them through KS4, GCSEs and beyond.
In Year 7, pupils start with Ancient Origins – the very beginning of Literature (poetry) in history with The Epic of Gilgamesh and then Homer’s Odyssey. The year then takes them through the Old English Beowulf and ends with the fundamentals of rhetoric.
In Year 8, pupils move to the end of the 18th century studying Romantic poets like William Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley. They then consider the beginning of the novel with Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. They end the year with an introduction to the thrilling Gothic genre of the 19th century.
Year 9 pupils are exhilarated with our Supernatural topic and read an abridged version of The Woman in Black. Moving on, pupils understand where the Tragedy genre comes from with analysis of Sophocles’ Oedipus and Miller’s A View from the Bridge. At the end of the year, pupils prepare for a practice Spoken Language Endorsement by reading and analysing powerful speeches and rhetoric.
Learn more about English at Key Stage 4
In Year 10 pupils read and analyse our three Literature texts – Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, whilst also studying 15 poems based on the themes of power and conflict. They will also complete their Spoken Language Endorsement – a presentation on a topic of their choice – as part of their Language GCSE.
Year 11 mainly focuses on our two Language papers: Language Paper 1 is based on the analysis of an extract from a fiction novel, then pupils need to create a piece of descriptive writing. Whereas, Language Paper 2 is a comparison of two non-fiction extracts, and then a transactional piece of writing. The Literature texts are revised primarily through homework and essay skills in classrooms.
Extra Curricular
We are lucky to have a range of extra-curricular activities:
- Rotary Club Youth Speaks – an opportunity for pupils from KS3 and KS4 to present on a topic of their choice
- Trips to local theatres to see the texts we study come to life
- Visit from theatre company – A Christmas Carol for Year 10
- A level English taster sessions
- The opportunity of university lectures
- The Speakers’ Trust – a charity organisation to help with our anxious speakers