English
'It is books that are a key to the wide world; if you can’t do anything else, read all that you can.'
Our vision at Co-op Academy North Manchester is to ensure that every student leaves our care empowered to lead happy and successful lives. As the English department, it is our belief that through the excellent teaching of English, we can create a culture where our students thrive and leave with the necessary knowledge and skills to impact on and influence their own lives. Through our carefully designed and sequenced curriculum our vision is transformed into reality, ensuring that all pupils, from all starting points are able to progress and achieve.
In making curriculum choices, we have considered what we want for the pupils in our care. We want them to be able to find and use their own voice so that they can speak and write articulately and with impressive confidence. We want them to read widely, experiencing texts which they might not otherwise have encountered and understand the impact that these texts have had on the world today. We want them to comprehend these texts clearly so that they are able to make insightful and thoughtful inferences based on depth of understanding. We want to encourage their curiosity and creativity, developing and enhancing their ability to interpret the world around them and empathise with others.
In experiencing our curriculum, our pupils are supported to become assured, resilient, independent young adults who can continue to enjoy and engage with English through the different stages of their life.
How is the curriculum delivered?
Key Stage 3
At Key Stage 3, our pupils engage with a rich and challenging curriculum which equips our pupils with the necessary knowledge to become assured readers, writers and speakers. In each year group, pupils study schemes of learning centred around the novel, the work of Shakespeare, poetry, creative and non fiction reading, and creative and transactional writing. Organising our curriculum in this way ensures these golden threads of learning are picked up, re-visited and that new knowledge is layered securely on to that which has gone before.
In Years 7, 8 and 9 pupils are taught in mixed ability groups. They have eight English lessons per fortnight and homework is set on a weekly basis. At Key Stage 3, it can be necessary to ‘split’ a class between two teachers. Where this occurs, the two teachers will be in regular contact to ensure that all areas of the curriculum are covered. Educational and administrative tasks including the setting of homework, report writing and attendance at Parents’ Evenings will be shared between staff.
Assessment at Key Stage 3 is designed to ensure that we have a secure understanding of what our pupils do and do not know so that next steps can be identified and appropriate action is taken to ensure progress continues. Understanding is checked on a daily basis through formative assessment strategies within the classroom. Each scheme of learning contains three more formal assessment points in which pupils engage in producing extended written responses. At each of these points, pupils receive written feedback that enables them to address errors or misconceptions so that these can be avoided in the future.
Key Stage 4
At GCSE, we follow the AQA specifications for both Language and Literature. All students do both subjects. Pupils use their knowledge from Key Stage 3 to engage with fiction and non-fiction texts from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first centuries and the literature texts as set forth by the examination board. At Co-op Academy North Manchester, we have chosen to study the following texts for Literature at GCSE:
- ‘Romeo and Juliet’ - William Shakespeare
- ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ - Robert Louis Stevenson
- ‘Blood Brothers’ - Willy Russell
- AQA Love and Relationship Poetry Cluster
As with Key Stage 3, pupils' understanding is checked on a daily basis through formative assessment strategies within the classroom. Formal assessment points are contained within the schemes of learning which are assessed against the criteria set forth by the exam board. At the end of Year 10, pupils sit mock exams based on the content which has been studied and mid way through Year 11 all pupils sit a full suite of mock exams. Revision sessions are offered throughout the year both after school and at lunchtimes. Additional revision sessions are offered by staff during Easter and May holidays.
Qualifications offered
AQA GCSE English Language
AQA GCSE English Literature
Wider learning opportunities
Pupils are encouraged to participate in a range of extracurricular activities which aim to support and further their understanding of the curriculum. These include:
- Reading clubs at Key Stage 3 and 4
- Debate Mate
- Trust Wide Spelling and Public Speaking competitions
- Reading Rocks
- Peer reading programmes
- Visits by authors and poets
- Theatre trips
- Visiting Theatre Groups and live performances
Links to career pathways throughout the curriculum
The links below explain what knowledge, understanding and skills pupils learn about in English for each year group, as well as how they are assessed.