English

We aim to ‘Create Confident Communicators’. “Raise your words not your voice” Rumi

We want all our students to leave Tile Cross being able to read, write and communicate in all forms with fluency and confidence.  All students are encouraged to stretch themselves in English lessons throughout their school life at Tile Cross and are presented with opportunities to develop their CORE skills. We promote challenging texts and exceptional writing to enable students to develop and deepen both their subject knowledge and expertise.  As a supportive department in a diverse school, we explicitly incorporate children’s rights through discussions and activities that bear relevance to our wide ranging texts, ensuring students’ rights are learned, understood and lived.

The department currently has 7 full time members of staff representing a range in experience and covering all specialisms for English Language and English Literature.  We are located in Central building on the first floor and have a suite of fully resourced classrooms that are equipped for our delivery of multi-media lessons as and when required.  We house 2 sets of laptops for our students as well as access to computer suites and lecture theatres as needed.

At Key Stage 3 we teach a diverse curriculum based around our ethos of building engagement and excitement for texts, reading and fluency in communicating.  The delivery of the curriculum is text based and we read a variety of material from contemporary novels from authors such as Benjamin Zephaniah up to classic tales from Dickens.  We encourage all our students to be fully challenged and study Shakespeare every year building their expertise preparing them for their future learning.  There are opportunities for writing both fiction and non-fiction throughout the years including competitions, which builds from their reading of non-fiction texts.

All pupils are required to study both English Literature and English Language at Key Stage 4. After studying all the required Literature texts Year 10 will sit their GCSE English Literature.  This enables students to focus on their knowledge and skills for Literature to support them gaining as high a grade as possible.  The application of these skills in Year 10 will then support the students with their English Language GCSE at the end of Year 11.  Students demonstrate great enthusiasm for English as we endeavour to make our subject as invigorating and exciting as possible.  Units on up to the date issues such as youth crime and student well-being, enable all students to engage and enjoy their English lessons which also help to build their resilience for life beyond school.

Communicating clearly flows throughout the year groups in the English department.  We encourage the use of voice and language to express and stimulate ideas from a mock court trial for Macbeth in Year 7 all the way up to a speech about something that inspires you for an exam component in Y11.