Catholicism in English

Thought for the Month: Spring Term

“Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”1 Corinthians 15:58

English focus: Catholic values in Persuasive Writing

As we welcome in 2024, we have been exploring the importance of social justice, and how we can use catholic values to make the world a kinder, fairer and more forgiving place. We discussed how we can further God’s work in our everyday lives, and what simple resolutions we can do daily to help take care of our planet and all those on it.

Using persuasive writing strategies learned in class, we have developed our writing abilities to recommend a variety of guiding steps we can follow this year. These have included a focus on compassion and benevolence; giving something you have to benefit someone else, such as sharing a positive comment, thought or prayer. We also discussed stewardship and ensuring we do our part for the planet, caring for our school environment by recycling regularly and walking more often. We also considered sacrifice, and what we can give up this year to benefit others around us, such as sacrificing your time to benefit and help others.

We encourage you to consider how you can make 2024 the best year yet, with a focus on Catholic values driving you to achieve great things. We leave you with this prayer, written by our member Connie:

Dear Lord

We thank you for this new year. Help us to be the best we can be.

Guide us to show random acts of kindness; smile at a stranger; help a sibling with their homework.

Help us support charity; donate when doing the food shop; donating time and helping as much as possible.

Show us the importance of family; seeing our loved ones regularly and helping out around the house.

Help us to be the best we can be.

Amen

English

Intent:

Our English department believes in fostering a love of literature through innovative, engaging teaching. We demand a high standard of work and behaviour from all our pupils, but believe in reward they will achieve outstanding results which will enable them to fulfill their potential both in higher education and their careers.

Our lessons are designed to encourage our learners through discussion, the teaching of engaging texts which stimulate interest and the developing of pupil’s vocabulary and ability to express themselves in a variety of forms and for a variety of purposes. We explore poetry, contemporary and classic literature and also link to our sister subjects of Media and Film Studies through a wide-ranging curriculum at KS3 which celebrates diversity and increases a pupils knowledge and appreciation of the fact that every life matters. We encourage pupil’s creativity and independence, allowing them to become more resilient learners in preparation for the rigour of KS4.

Head of Department Joe Were is the only Specialist Leader of Education for Secondary English in the city and has worked with schools across the Portsmouth area to raise attainment. He also co-chairs the Portsmouth Teaching School Alliance Secondary PEN Meetings and believes that every child the department have the pleasure of teaching learns to love literature through the dynamic and engaging lessons that the English department deliver everyday.

Within English we use a variety of Assessment for Learning strategies to empower our pupils and ensure accelerated progress is made. Two of the most effective are half time targets and 'feeding forwards'.

Half time targets allow pupils to stop mid-way through a task and reflect on what they need to do in order to improve. This can either be self or peer assessed, and involves pupils using the lesson's WILFs to produce a SMART target that is then re-assessed when the task is finished. Reflecting on a task at the mid-point means that our pupils in English are constantly reflecting on what they need to do in order to progress.

Feeding forward allows pupils to re-draft prior work and rectify any caveats that may have arisen. Pupils re-write one paragraph from previous work, implementing feedback from their teacher to improve it. This means as teachers we know that our feedback will be taken on board, and that the pupils will show this in their work instantly, accelerating progress and meaning similar errors will not occur again.

Implementation:

If you want to know more about careers in English, please contact English Career's Champion Mrs Chester-Davies on 

Key Stage 3 (Year 7-9)

Our KS3 curriculum is designed to provide optimum creativity for both pupil and teacher – books taught are from a list that has been curated from our own love of literature rather than just two of three texts or those that are not being taught at KS4 (like some schools). Pupils develop an ability to read and write a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts, building a repertoire of skills to ready them for the rigour of KS4. These include whole novels (rather than extracts), Shakespeare, 19^th century Literature, Poetry, Articles, Pamphlets and other non-fiction texts as well as looking at more diverse approaches to English through multi-media and film. Our selection of texts champion the diversity that we have both within school and pupils’ wider social circles and improve their understanding of their place within the world and the experience of those from diverse backgrounds.

We encourage pupils to develop a more ambitious and sophisticated vocabulary and punctuation and use assessments which foreshadow the line of questioning they will encounter in KS4. The final KS3 assessment ascertains their ability in creative writing and comparing Power and Conflict Poetry, readying them for the more strenuous work of KS4.

Key Stage 4 (Year 10 & 11)

The English Language course in Yr 11 consists of two papers – Explorations in Creative Writing and Writing from Perspective.

Both papers consist of a Section A (answering four questions on sources provided) and a Section B (writing either creatively or about a particular perspective). These exams test pupil’s ability to infer, analyse structure and language, compare sources as well as their ability to write to different forms and audiences using a wide-ranging vocabulary and high level of spelling and grammatical accuracy.

Both these papers are weighted 50% in terms of the final GCSE grade.

This GCSE is taught through topic-based learning which covers a range of subjects that are pertinent to the experiences of society today such as Racism and Equality, Ethics of Science and Knife Crime.  Pupils are encouraged to look at fictional and non-fiction sources which explore, question and celebrate the experience of diverse people and how their lives have made an impact on the world that we know. This apporach builds cross curricular learning and strengthens pupils understanding of how the curriculum at St. Edmund's fits together to improve them as both a pupil and person.

 
All texts within the KS3 and KS4 curriculum overview with skills document under the 'Resources' section below are highlighted in blue to celebrate diversity and show pupils the importance of building a knowledge and understanding that every life matters.