Why do we learn English?
Head of Department
Our approach
Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
Year 10
Year 11

Why do we learn English?

Our curriculum is based on the shared belief that all students need to be able to speak, read and write clearly. Precise communication is needed to have rich professional and social relationships. Through reading and writing, students can communicate with those around them, engaging with their community. As well as this, students develop their capacity to understand and empathise with the endless worlds around and within them. Students develop independence in using language creatively and exploring writers’ craft; this, in turn, serves to nurture varied and important cultural capital and familiarity with a range of great writers. 

Head of Department

Our approach

Across KS3 and KS4, students will express themselves creatively and explain their ideas clearly while also analysing how writers and speakers use methods to influence and engage audiences and readers. Students read a range of text types, including novels, plays and poetry from a range of times and places starting with the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Reading and writing are the two key elements of our curriculum. We teach a knowledge-rich curriculum which addresses misconceptions and barriers to vocabulary acquisition and decoding of texts progressing to developed analysis and evaluation of writers’ ideas cross-referenced across different texts.  

Our dedicated team of EAL teachers and teaching assistants inform and develop our provision to support students who enter the school with barriers to reading and writing in English. Through cross-curricular development, we are also making bold steps to address barriers to students’ reading, and targeting intervention to support students to better access the content which they read at all levels of English fluency. 

Pupils at Ark Elvin also experience a varied range of English enrichment activities from theatre visits and visits from theatre groups to perform plays they are studying to clubs including the school magazine, Debate Mate and the anime/manga club.  

Year 7

Autumn 1 Autumn 2
Oliver Twist Creative Writing 1.1
Spring 1 Spring 2
A Midsummer Night's Dream Creative Writing 1.2
Summer 1 Summer 2

Poetry and Allegory  

Creative Writing 1.3 

 Ancient Tales and Oracy  

All Year 7 subjects Next Year 7 Subject - Science

Year 8

Autumn 1 Autumn 2
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes   The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 
Spring 1 Spring 2
The Tempest Shakespeare's Sonnets
Summer 1 Summer 2
Animal Farm Rhetoric 

All Year 8 subjects Next Year 8 Subject - Science

Year 9

Autumn 1 Autumn 2
Jane Eyre  Jane Eyre 
Spring 1 Spring 2
Small Island  Small Island
Summer 1 Summer 2
Poetry (comparisons) Reading for Study

All Year 9 subjects Next Year 9 Subject - Science

Year 10

Autumn 1 Autumn 2

Language:
Reading Fiction

Literature:
‘An Inspector Calls’

Language:
Writing Fiction

Literature:
‘An Inspector Calls’  
Spring 1 Spring 2

Language:
Reading Non-Fiction

Literature:
‘Macbeth’ 

Language:
Writing Non-Fiction

Literature:
‘Macbeth’ 
Summer 1 Summer 2

Language:
Reading and Writing Fiction
 

Literature: 
Relationships Poetry / Revision of ‘An Inspector Calls’ and ‘Macbeth’

Language:
Speaking and Listening

Literature:
Relationships Poetry 

All Year 10 subjects Next Year 10 Subject - Science

Year 11

Autumn 1 Autumn 2

Language:
Paper 2 Non-Fiction Reading and Writing

Literature:
‘A Christmas Carol’  

Language:
Paper 2 Non-Fiction Closing the Gaps

Literature:
‘A Christmas Carol’  
Spring 1 Spring 2

Language:
Paper 1 Fiction Reading and Writing

Literature:
Revision

Language:
Paper 1 Fiction Closing the Gaps

Literature:
Closing the Gaps 
Summer 1 Summer 2
Language and Literature Revision    

All Year 11 subjects Next Year 11 Subject - Science