English Faculty

Teaching and Learning Director
Mrs C Banham

The English Faculty’s policy is to empower and inspire literate individuals who are competent and confident users of English, whilst providing opportunities for all students to achieve their full potential and to promote and enable academic achievement of the highest calibre. Not least among our aims is a desire to foster within our students a love of English.

Overview of Curriculum Key Stage 3

Throughout their time at Oulder Hill, students in KS3 are taught English in mixed ability groups: students who need additional help with their reading skills are placed in a group with students of similar needs, enabling focused and effective intervention to take place. This is supported by our Nuture group in Year 7. Similarly, throughout KS3, students who are consistently excelling and/or have a flight path of 7+ are placed in the same group. All groups are reviewed regularly.

Each year group has 4 one hour lessons per week. In year 7, it is the policy of the school that classes be kept as small as possible. Students will be set homework on a regular basis, usually twice a week. Homework will involve either a writing task, research, planning, learning or reading. Each homework will normally involve about thirty minutes of private study. Students are assessed regularly in lessons and at the end of each unit of work with a common assessment piece. Staff will make constructive comments which aim to point out the strengths in their work and highlight weaknesses for future action.

Overview of Curriculum Key Stage 4

Pupils in current Year 10 and 11 are following 2 GCSE qualifications, one in English Language and the other in English Literature. They will be awarded 2 separate GCSE grades following their exams in the summer term. Both GCSE qualifications are obtained through an exam worth 100% of the final grade awarded. There is also an Individual Speaking Test which students must undertake, which is recorded, and this is a separate qualification. There is only one tier of entry for examination in both Language and Literature

Set in KS4 are similar to those in KS3: students are mostly mixed ability, with the exception of students who may require additional reading intervention and students who are consistently excelling and/or have a flightpath of 7+ are placed in the same group. Once again, all groups are reviewed regularly.

The specification code for GCSE English Language is 8700 (UK):

View Specification

The specification code for GCSE English Literature is 8702:

View Specification