English Literature

Head of Department: Mr Bruce

 

Department Background
 The English Department at Latymer is vigorous and successful, offering pupils lively, demanding courses. It secures excellent examination results.

There are nine full- or part-time members of the Department. At our two most recent visitations from Ofsted, teaching has been described as ‘Outstanding’ – a judgement of which we are proud and which we work hard to sustain.

We work very much as a team, producing stimulating courses at all levels, matching provision to need. In this, we are fortunate to be able to use the rich resources within the School: the well-stocked library – professionally managed by our Chartered Librarian; the various performance spaces; the up-to-the-minute ICT provision both in dedicated computer rooms but also in every classroom with its interactive whiteboard. It is through this last facility that we present the teaching materials the Department has devised.

We pride ourselves that the only course material we use from publishers is one revision book for GCSE. Beyond that, all our teaching materials are bespoke. A great deal of work has been undertaken to prepare material for use interactively – either on whiteboards or on computers. All our teaching materials are available for pupils during the day through the School’s intranet system and from home via the internet.

Year 7 - 9
 At Key Stage 3, our schemes of work have been revised and developed to meet National Curriculum requirements in ways that are appropriate to the needs of Latymer pupils. Within a carefully structured context, colleagues are encouraged to use their initiative in the planning and teaching of the courses.  This year, for example, a Year 7 class has created its own webpage, manipulating images through Photoshop and incorporating film made on the School premises.

"We work with the Librarian to promote reading for pleasure. Each year, groups of Year 8 pupils take part in the Carnegie Award Shadowing Scheme, where they “shadow” the judging process, reading the shortlisted books and comparing their choice with that of the official panel. We organise several author visits each year. Authors Marcus Sedgwick, James Dawson and Sita Brahmachari visited recently."
Year 10 - 11
 We use the AQA syllabus for both English Language (4705) and English Literature (4710).

For us, literature holds the primacy and, within the strictures of the syllabus, we study whole texts of literary merit. In addition to the Board’s limited poetry anthology, we have assembled our own collection of poems covering every century from the 13th to the 21st. In this way, we hope our pupils will leave with more than simply a GCSE certificate. We also hope that the range will encourage them to see what wealth awaits those who go on to study at ‘A’ level – some 70 pupils each year.
 Sixth Form

 We follow the Welsh Board English Literature Syllabus. In Year 12, our texts are entirely from the 20th or 21st century. Pupils study one pair of poets –  
T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats;
Philip Larkin and Danny Abse; or
Seamus Heaney and Owen Sheers
and one play –
Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa,
Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass or
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.
Two pieces of coursework – one on a novel (for example, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway) and one that requires pupils to write a piece in a particular genre (for example, satire or dystopia) and then offer a critique as if from a dispassionate point of view – complete the AS course.

At A2 (Year 13) our materials are entirely pre-20th century. We begin with an extended (3000 word) coursework essay linking three texts across genre and period. One example takes London as its focus, based on a study of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the poetry of Alexander Pope and the Jacobean play The Roaring Girl. The examination is based on, first, a synoptic study of Milton’s Paradise Lost Book IX and second, a Shakespeare play linked with another drama text – King Lear and Oedipus Rex or Hamlet and The Revenger’s Tragedy.

We have built up a comprehensive collection of critics to supplement and deepen the pupils' studies. These are held in the Lending Library and Learning Resource Centre. The collection is updated each year. Eresources such as Philip Allan English Review, eMag, Oxford Reference shelf and EBSCO literary centre are available from the library and Latymerplus.

 

Our pupils over the last two years have prospered with an average of 48% passing at A*. Normally, a dozen or so pupils continue English studies at university.

 Activities and Recent Highlights
 To support the curriculum, we organise theatre trips and arrange lectures with invited speakers.