English

Head of Department: Mrs.Wells

Outline of course:

Content: The Year 7 curriculum is organised into five units covering the requirements of the English National Curriculum and drawing on the advised learning objectives included within the National Literacy Framework.

All Year 7 students will study a modern novel such as "Holes" or "Skellig"; a media Theme Park unit; an introduction to Shakespeare's World; a poetry unit and a unit about writing within the quest genre called "The Last Big Bottle"

Activities: We aim to offer a wide variety of teaching and learning activities in order to engage all learners. Just a few examples of activities your child may learn through are: close reading of texts, cloze exercises, role play, group discussion, oral presentations, hot seating etc. Three classrooms are equipped with interactive whiteboards and we have our very own computer room which will be visited at least once a week.

Skills: Each core unit will offer a wide variety of activities to develop and improve students' speaking and listening, reading and writing skills, understanding and knowledge. We hope to equip your son/daughter with skills appropriate to their GCSE's from Yr7 onwards.

Homework activities: Each unit of work lasts approximately six weeks and, typically, students will be set one twenty minute homework task per week which sholud be completed in their homework/rough book.

Typical tasks will include researching a topic, learning spellings and/or the meaning of words, independent reading, teacher-directed reading, focused writing tasks, proof-reading, completion of class work and learning evaluations, activity sheets on the VLE.

Pupils are also expected to read every day outside of lessons; we suggest for 20 minutes. This will be monitored by class teachers and pupils should have a book in school every day.

Your help is very much appreciated and here are a few ideas about how you can support your children with their homework:

• Talk to your child about how to approach the task set.
• Discuss his or her reading; listen to him/her read
• Help your child to look up unfamiliar vocabulary and to learn it
• Proof-read work with your child (please advise us of the help you have given)
• Test on spellings etc
• Encourage the meeting of deadlines
• Encourage your children to take an active interest in current affairs and to feel comfortable discussing their opinions

Assessment: One formal assessment will be conducted per unit of work to a total of two speaking and listening, two reading and two writing assessments. National Curriculum levels will be awarded for each formally assessed task.

An end of year examination will take place in June and end of year assessment is by National Curriculum levels of attainment.

Parental contribution: Parents are encouraged to monitor students' homework and offer guidance wherever possible. Please do not hesitate to make contact with your son's/daughter's teacher, in the event of problems or queries.

Useful resources and equipment: A good dictionary or spellchecker at home. Access to a computer, if possible. A tape recorder can also be useful.

Other relevant information: Setting in year eight will be determined by pupil performance through Year 7 and end of year internal examination results.