English

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The English Department.

Hello, I’m Miss J. Fuller. I oversee English, Interventions and Progress here at Egerton. I am passionate about helping young people develop their confidence and skills in English and motivating them to achieve their very best. Outside of teaching, I love to surf, go to yoga, and read! My favourite books include The Kiterunner by Khaled Hosseini, Homegoing by Ya Gyasi, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I also enjoy travelling to places that have really different cultures from ours and have spent time teaching abroad in Cambodia. 

My name is Miss Wallwork, I’m one of the English teachers here at Egerton High School. My role is to assist and enable our young people to achieve their highest potential at GCSE and to promote and inspire a love for the English subject. I aim to encourage our young people to read for pleasure, finding the joy in stories and creativity. Reading interventions take place throughout the week, which I support students with. This enables them to access the wider curriculum, building confidence, thus motivating overall class engagement. I am also a Nurture Lead within our Growth Zone, here I build positive relationships and offer support to some of our more vulnerable students. I have worked here for four wonderful years. I started my journey as a 1:1 support assistant, for the past two years, I have been teaching English. Previously, I have worked in the youth justice system. My belief is that with the right encouragement, motivation and hard work, our young people will flourish.

English Rationale

The schemes of work we study in English allow students to study a rich range of texts from different genres, cultures, and time periods with the aim of encouraging a love of English and reading. At Egerton, we are committed to equipping our young people with high self-esteem to achieve their full potential; we aim to ensure that our students leave Egerton as clear and confident communicators of English and with the appropriate literacy levels to navigate the world around them.

Our plans are based around carefully chosen texts, topics or genres that can be linked naturally to the whole school theme and that develop the cultural capital of our learners. The focus is on texts that are deemed the “best of what has been thought and said”, that are engaging and that open up areas for discussion and opinion such as justice, resilience, duty and relationships; hopefully the texts studied instil a sense of responsibility for words and actions in school and in the community.

Opinion and expression are nurtured through each topic; we focus on developing vocabulary, oracy, reading comprehension and writing skills. Our weekly plans allow flexibility within lessons to ensure our students’ needs are met whilst providing them with a robust, rigorous curriculum. Above all, we strive to ‘close the gap’ for our students and change any negative feelings towards reading and English by creating positive and encouraging experiences in our lessons. 

Key Stage 3

Here at Egerton High School our Key Stage 3 curriculum is broadly theme based, building on general knowledge of the theme from other subject areas whilst maintaining a focus on reading, writing and speaking and listening skills. We aim to put quality texts at the heart of our curriculum and encourage students to read for pleasure. At Key Stage 3, our aim is to increase progression in literacy as well as to inspire learners with creative writing and reading from a range of genres and time periods. Students are challenged yet highly supported in lessons, and work is planned to encourage confidence and independence.

Key Stage 4

At Key Stage 4, students build upon their reading, writing and speaking and listening skills gained at Key Stage 3, and they will deepen their analytical abilities through the study of challenging and varied texts ranging from the 19th to 21st century. Students will learn how to write fiction and non-fiction texts for specific audiences and purposes using engaging stimulus such as, for example, inspiring speeches, film, art and photographs.

We currently follow the AQA GCSE English Language (8700) specification.  All students are entered for GCSE at the end of Year 11 and will also complete the OCR Entry Level Certificate where they will be awarded up to Level 3.  Students will be assessed regularly and will complete mock exams to prepare them for their final exams in year 11. 

English Curriculum Documents:

Example Work

Year 11 English Language GCSE!

 We are so proud of our Year 11 students who have been demonstrating an excellent work ethic and positive attitude towards their GCSE. The demand of the new specification means that students have to study difficult non-fiction texts and analyse a writer's viewpoint and use of language. They then have to write up their responses in a clear, academic manner. 

 In order to practise this skill, we started to examine the viewpoints presented in tweets. Once students had mastered the ability to compare perspectives, we started to apply this skill to challenging texts from past papers. 

 All students worked hard, despite the challenge of the question, and produced impressive essays. Well done for your phenomenal efforts!

Halloween Writing Competition

This year, we ran our first ever whole school writing competition, and students had the opportunity to create the opening of a spooky story. We were so impressed to receive twenty one applications, and it was a difficult decision for the judges to choose the top three! Well done to DB, LW and KP who won first, second, and third place, and had their stories read out in assembly! Also, a huge congratulations to everyone who entered. The quality of writing was really high and it was fantastic to see so many students applying the skills and techniques that they have learnt in lessons. We can't wait for next term's competition. 

Please see below to read some of the stories!

World Book Day at Egerton:

On the 4th March 2021, students and staff celebrated World Book Day. Students enjoyed creating their own stories and also participated in quizzes about famous books and characters. Can you guess which famous book characters some of our staff dressed up as?

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Congratulations to all students who entered the writing competition; we were so impressed with the improved quality of your writing and the unique storylines you came up with! It was a difficult decision to choose the top three! 

Nurture 3 did a wonderful job creating blackout poetry with some challenging Gothic texts:

Nurture 3 have been working hard at developing their close reading and creative writing skills:

Our KS4 students enjoyed reading Of Mice and Men and analysing Steinbeck's use of language: