Staff in the English department are extremely proud of all that our pupils have achieved over the remote learning period. We are truly impressed with the high level of effort and engagement with the work.

We have been studying a range of texts over the last term that promote an awareness of wider social issues.

Year 7 focused their attention on exploring ‘War Poetry’, from physical warfare to emotional wars. Pupils have shown great interest in exploring the impact that wars have by continuing this theme through to their learning of Language Paper 2, whereby they have been analysing non-fiction texts that express the lasting impacts of war. It has been great to see how the pupils explored the topic with maturity and sensitivity.

Year 8 have been studying ‘Lord of the Flies’ – a text which asks the pupils to question the tension between order and disorder within society. The pupils have shown great enthusiasm for this topic as they have been working their way through creative projects of making survival guides, to analysing the concept of power, to debating the core values of humanity and friendship.

The Year 9s have been focusing their attention to ‘Love and Relationships Poetry’, which has encouraged discussions on how connections are formed between two people. We have been taken aback by the excellent level of engagement with the poems, with pupils forming original and insightful interpretations and developing exploratory debates to explore their opinions. The skills that the pupils have developed within this topic will support their work in Year 10 when covering the GCSE poetry anthology.

Within our GCSE years, both Years 10 and 11 have continued the learning of their GCSE content. Year 10 have been working on their poetry anthology, ‘Power and Conflict’. They have been exploring themes of war, trauma, relationships, man versus nature, alongside many more.

Similarly, Year 11s continued with their study of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in the immediate weeks following the return after the Christmas Holiday, tying together their knowledge on the key themes, context and characters.

Once they finished the Shakespearean text, pupils moved onto revising their Language Paper 2 skills, which we continued in our first couple of weeks upon our return to the classroom. We are very proud of our students continuing to apply themselves to their studies, and their motivation to succeed in their GCSEs despite a very challenging year.

Our students in Quest6 have continued to work tirelessly, with Year 12s finishing their first poetry anthology and beginning their studies on ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’.

Finally, our Year 13s have been working hard on completing their coursework, on top of revising their core texts studied in Year 12.

As a department we are thankful for all the support that the parents and carers of our students have provided.