Overall Curriculum Goals

List the outcomes you expect students from this year group to have achieved by the end of the year:

1.     Synthesise information from different sources / texts 

2.     Make inference and deductions based on precise textual evidence 

3.     Explain why a writer uses deliberate word choices and language features for individual and overall effect 

4.     Comment on how structure supports a writer’s theme / idea / purpose 

5.     Include precise quotations and/or references in when writing about texts.

Half Term 1

Half Term 2

Half Term 3

Half Term 4

Half Term 5

Half Term 6

Topic Title: 

Imagining the Future

Topic Title: 

Voices of the World

Topic Title: 

Dystopia - 1984, Handmaids Tale, Flowers of Algernon

Celebrating culture - A range of poetry from other cultures

Visionaries - Exploring speeches from key rhetorical figure (MLK, Obama, Pankhurst)

Topic Intent:

Students will explore and analyse a range of extracts from the dystopian and science fiction genres and understand why writers choose to write within these genres. They will look at how writers shape their writing, both in terms of language and structure in order to create effective characters and settings, but also to provoke opinion and deliver a message to their readers. They will be able to compare the work of writers within genre and understand their motivation. Students will be given the opportunity to emulate the style of writers whose work they read and will be exposed to ambitious vocabulary to ensure that they develop the use of these confidently in their writing.

Topic Intent: 

Students will be exposed to various writers from around the world; this ranges from diverse voices within our own British societies to the international voices and what our relationship is like with those we consider to be ‘different’. By beginning the topic with Henry Tajfel’s social identity theory, students are given the opportunity to learn why we have social groups and how they develop. They will be asked to apply this to their own wider world and apply the social theory to key events in today’s world and raise awareness of their own positions in society. By investigating the language of specific poems, students will unlock the driving factors behind them and the context they were written in. Students will build empathy as they use role play to position themselves into situations that people from other cultures may find themselves in. They will learn the power of speaking up and how poetry is an artistic form of this.

Topic Intent:

By the time students have reached the spring term of year 8 they have already studied a wide breadth of texts and are becoming aware of the importance of language when understanding and perceiving the world around them. Students will be encouraged to develop a mastery of the English language so that they can empower themselves with the skills needed to become effective communicators. This unit will offer an in depth look at the language of visionaries, from the Romantics, to the revolutionary rhetoric of Martin Luther King. Students will understand how language empowers people and gives them the opportunity to not only influence change but to express their own beliefs and ideas. Students will also appreciate the universal power of storytelling as a means to compel, influence and inspire change in others

Key Content / Skills:  

Key Content / Skills:  

Key Content / Skills:  

Key Content / Skills:  

Key Content / Skills:  

Key Content / Skills:  

Assessment: READING

Compare how writers use language and structure to effectively create a Dystopian world 80 marks, completed in October

Assessment: WRITING

Writing to argue. 80 marks, completed in December

Assessment: READING

How do both Dharker and Nichols use language to portray ideas of celebration?, 80 marks, completed in February

Assessment: WRITING

Write a diary extract 80 marks, completed in April

Assessment: READING

Assessment: WRITING

Home Learning:

homework weekly and reading lessons. Read one article a fortnight and complete comprehension questions

Employability, Professionalism and Enterprise  (EPE) Links

Employability, Professionalism and Enterprise  (EPE) Links

Employability, Professionalism and Enterprise  (EPE) Links