Thomas Becket Catholic School

Thomas Becket Catholic School

The mission of the English Department at Thomas Becket Catholic School is to:

  • Cultivate understanding, knowledge, and appreciation of the English language, its speakers and writers and its literature and cultures.
  • Aspire our students to use the language creatively, critically and effectively at an ‘Oxbridge standard’ to participate ethically in civic and professional life.
  • Provide our students with access to a range of Literature in order to foster creative and critical abilities, promote multiculturalism and tolerance in a globalised world.
  • Instil an appreciation of a cultural, historical, ethical, aesthetic linguistic force that shapes our lives, whilst also nurturing an inquisition for the English language, its history, conventions, structures and uses.
  • Provide opportunities to merge the art of creative and transactional writing with literary insight which will provide a hands-on experience that will empower our students to respond to human experience in a changing world.

Year 7

Year 7 Term 1: The Woman in Black

Key themes: Gothic, ghost stories, fear, isolation, storytelling, the past, trauma, supernatural, revenge, conspiracy of silence, nature.

Key knowledge will include:
Reader reception and response, awareness of impact and viewpoints
Characterisation
Structure and coherence, plot device, plot structure and narrative perspective
Writer's craft.

Key skills will include:
Composing a topic sentence
Beginning to write about a text and author's intent
Selecting and using evidence
Planning and structuring an essay
Elements of the gothic genre
Making comparisons: contemporary and pre-1914 fiction.

 

Year 7 Term 2: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Key themes: Love and hate, destiny, obligation, family, feuds, appearance and reality, order and disorder, Shakespearean England

Key knowledge will include:
Transactional styles and forms of writing linked to the anchor text
Persuasive writing styles and tasks
Writing for a specific audience and purpose
Writing about an idea/opinion
Spelling and etymology of key vocabulary
Punctuation used correctly in the correct form and style.

Key skills will include:
Writing for a specific purpose and audience with intent
Include differences associated with formal and informal register
Structuring transactional writing by linking paragraphs
Discourse markers and organisational features
Paying attention to accurate grammar including Pronoun ambiguity; prepositional phrases; run-on sentences.

 

Year 7 Term 3: Welcome to Nowhere

Key themes: War, conflict, compassion, family, bravery, loyalty

Key knowledge will include:
Begin to evaluate their own response to a text
Develop opinions on a text.

Key skills will include:
Evaluating the writer's choice of vocabulary and form
Writing about unseen texts
Paying attention to accurate grammar including temporal clauses; avoiding fragments.

Year 8

Year 8 Term 1: Noughts and Crosses (play adaptation) and conflict poetry

Key themes: Prejudice, racism, feminism, diversity, values, different cultures, British values, division, tragedy, awareness and privilege, love, lust, power, violence, youth, innocence and growing up, seminal world literature.

Key knowledge will include:
Recognising a range of poetic conventions and understanding how these have been used
Responding to a range of different texts from different forms, genres and time periods
Intertextuality
Key literary terms and etymology of words
Knowing the purpose, audience for and context of the text and author and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension

Key skills will include:
Developing use of linguistic and literary terminology
Composing a balanced argument
Skills in literary criticism using a range of tents from different periods, styles, cultures and genres
Begin to evaluate and analyse how language, structure, form and presentation contribute to quality and impact
Seek evidence in the text to support a point of view, including justifying inferences with evidence
Develop extended writing independently
Planning and structuring an essay
Making comparisons

 

Year 8 Term 2: Ruby in the Smoke

Key themes: Victorian London, love, relationships, mystery, danger, greed, corruption.

Key knowledge will include:
Genre and form, fiction and the narrative form, elements of the horror fiction genre and how this links to knowledge from Y7T1
Structure and coherence, plot device, plot structure and narrative perspective
Language, symbolism, imagery and Standard English
Spelling and etymology of key vocabulary
Punctuation used correctly in the correct form and style
Punctuation used for effect, coherence and overall effectiveness.

Key skills will include:
Writing for a specific purpose and audience with intent including writing character and describing settings
Structuring a coherent narrative by linking paragraphs
Discourse markers and organisational features
Using language effectively: adjective, adverbs, figurative language, extended metaphor
Planning, drafting and proof reading work
Paying attention to accurate grammar including: Complex sentences; correcting fragments; independent clauses.

 

Year 8 Term 3: The Tempest

Key themes: Betrayal, compassion, love, justice, colonization, obedience, power, magic and illusion, the supernatural, freedom and confinement, compassion and forgiveness.

Key knowledge will include:
Responding to a range of different texts from different forms, genres and time periods
Intertextuality
Key literary terms and etymology of words TBC
Knowing the purpose, audience for and context of the text and author and drawing on this knowledge to support comprehension
Understanding how the work of dramatists is communicated effectively through performance and how alternative staging allows for different interpretations of a play
Develop essay structure skills in literary form
Evaluate different responses to a text

Key skills will include:
Secure ability to independently write topic sentences
Explore aspects of plot, characterisation, events and settings, the relationships between them and their effects
Seek evidence in the text to support a point of view, including justifying inferences with evidence
Develop extended writing independently
Planning and structuring an essay
Make inferences about a text and author's intent
Referring to evidence from the text and selecting relevant evidence
Summarising and organising material including note taking skills (skim, scan and summarise)

Year 9

Year 9 Term 1: The Crucible

Key themes: Family, society, hysteria, reputation, judgement, social status, justice, ownership, goodness.

Key knowledge will include:
Genre and form, fiction and the narrative form, elements of the gothic genre and how this links to knowledge from Y7T1 and Y8T1
Structure and coherence, plot device, plot structure and narrative perspective
Language, symbolism, imagery and Standard English
Spelling and etymology of key vocabulary
Revisiting knowledge of literary devices from their reading and listening to enhance the impact of their writing
Punctuation used for effect, coherence and overall effectiveness
Re-reading books they've encountered earlier to increase familiarity

Key skills will include:
Writing for a specific purpose and audience with intent including well-structured formal expository and narrative essays
Structuring a coherent narrative by linking paragraphs
Discourse markers and organisational features
Using language effectively: adjective, adverbs, figurative language, extended metaphor,  first and third person narratives
Planning, drafting and proof reading work including avoiding contradictions
Applying their growing knowledge of vocabulary, grammar and text structure to their writing and selecting the appropriate form
Drawing on new vocabulary and grammar constructions and using these consciously in their writing and speech to achieve effects

 

Year 9 Term 2: The dystopian world

Key themes: Totalitarianism, propaganda, love, censorship, social justice, technology, language, identity, reality, control, loyalty, rebellion, storytelling

Key knowledge will include:
Master their ability to make comparisons between texts and text types
Study a variety of fiction over time

Key skills will include:
Making critical comparisons across texts,
Compare the writers' choice of vocabulary and structure
Writing about unseen texts
Mastering inference skills
Make accurate referneces to evidence from more than one text

 

Year 9 Term 3: Comparing poetry and non-fiction texts

Key knowledge will include:
Language and Power/Sociolinguistics: rhetoric, sociolect, idiolect, subtext, status, satire, parody, propaganda, journalism.
Writer’s craft: rhetoric, symbolism, tone, style, punctuation for effect.
Genre and form: tone, style, register, narrative perspective, writing to argue, transactional writing, writing to persuade, writing to inform, writing to explain, speech, letter, formal, informal, essays, reports, articles
Grammar: syntax for effect, punctuation for effect, academic register, thesis, cyclical structure.
Spoken Language, discussions, response, speeches, devil’s advocate,
thesis, rhetoric, performance, structure.

Key skills will include:
Transactional styles and forms of writing linked to a range of different genres, forms, historical periods and authors
Write for different purposes and audiences and in different forms through effectively adapting style, tone and register appropriately, using knowledge gained from reading extensively.
Be a confident and impressive orator able to communicate effectively for a specific purpose through using a sophisticated repertoire of vocabulary, structure and rhetoric in order to engage the audience.
Understand the power of written and spoken language to inspire and manipulate, by reflecting critically and evaluatively on a writer’s intentions, identifying bias.
Write accurately and purposefully, in an academic register, using a full range of sentence forms, punctuation, and structural and grammatical features, for effect.

Year 10

The English department follows the AQA syllabus and offers students the opportunity to gain two qualifications by the end of the course - English Language and English Literature.

The English Language qualification consists of two papers, both equal in weighting. Each paper consists of a reading section (based on unseen extracts) and a writing section. Students can achieve grades 1-9 in English Language.

  • Paper 1: Explorations in Creative reading and writing
  • Paper 2: Exploring writers’ viewpoints and perspectives

The English Literature qualification also consists of two papers. At TBCS, our students study MacbethA Christmas CarolAn Inspector CallsPower and Conflict poetry and unseen poetry. Students can achieve grades 1-9 in English Literature.

  • Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th-century novel
  • Paper 2: Modern texts and poetry

Year 11

The English department follows the AQA syllabus and offers students the opportunity to gain two qualifications by the end of the course - English Language and English Literature.

The English Language qualification consists of two papers, both equal in weighting. Each paper consists of a reading section (based on unseen extracts) and a writing section. Students can achieve grades 1-9 in English Language.

  • Paper 1: Explorations in Creative reading and writing
  • Paper 2: Exploring writers’ viewpoints and perspectives

The English Literature qualification also consists of two papers. At TBCS, our students study MacbethA Christmas CarolAn Inspector CallsPower and Conflict poetry and unseen poetry. Students can achieve grades 1-9 in English Literature.

  • Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th-century novel
  • Paper 2: Modern texts and poetry