English Year 9
GCSE English
Topics
The course begins with an intensive study of various writing skills, teaching students to adapt their language and writing techniques for specific purposes and audiences. These include:
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Writing to Inform, Explain, Describe
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Writing to Argue, Persuade, Advise
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Writing to Imagine, Explore, Entertain
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Writing to Analyse, Review, Comment
This unit will take students up to the Christmas holidays, and will include a variety of written assessments throughout the scheme of work.
As in years 7 and 8, students will then have the opportunity to enjoy some or all of the following:
- A class novel, for example Robert Swindells’ ‘Daz 4 Zoe’, or ‘Stone Cold’, Meg Rosoff’s ‘How I Live Now’, S.E. Hinton’s ‘The Outsiders’.
- Poetry, for example the works of Hegley and Agard.
- An analysis of Media and Non-Fiction texts.
- A creative project based on the Titanic Disaster, allowing cross-curricular links with History.
This year will also have a special focus on Shakespeare’s comedy, "Much Ado About Nothing" or "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Students will have the opportunity to research Shakespeare’s life, his contribution to the literary heritage and learn how to analyse the language of our most eminent playwright. Teachers take an active approach to the study of Shakespeare, bringing the drama alive for our students.
Skills
The skills learnt in English are linked to the Assessment Focuses that students are tested on at the end of the key stage. For Reading they will develop skills to do with information retrieval, inference and deduction, analysis of language, structural and presentational features of texts. For Writing they will develop skills to do with writing a range of different text types, organising texts effectively, varying sentence structures for effect, technical accuracy, spelling and vocabulary. Some assessment in Year 9 may use GCSE criteria also.
Setting Arrangements
Students are taught in a mixed ability setting.
Homework
Homework is set once weekly and varies greatly; it could be some research, a final draft of a piece of writing, preparation of a speech, a play scene, silent reading and so on. Homework is vital to the progress of the student and must be done to the best of the student’s ability and done on time. It enables the teacher to check and monitor the understanding of each student.
Assessment and Reporting
Students are monitored and assessed through the work they do in class and the homework handed in. Assessment Focuses are used to review our pupils’ individual strengths and weaknesses. Work will be given a National Curriculum level at least once a half-term and the completed, marked work stored in a folder in school as evidence for the end of year KS3 teacher assessment. The work in folders also informs reports to parents.
How parents/carers can help
Read with your daughter on a regular basis and encourage them to experience a range of genres and authors. Allow them to make use of library facilities in their area and to use the internet to develop research and reading skills. Encourage them to read a range of non-fiction material, including a newspaper. Help your daughter with spellings by keeping a log of difficult words and then test them at the end of the week. Encourage them to use a thesaurus when doing written work in order to expand their vocabulary. Above all else we ask that you continue to encourage and motivate your daughter in her study of English.
