Term 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: Enchantment, Courage, Loyalty, Betrayal, Destiny, Friendship, Prejudice, Bravery, Sacrifice, Identity.

  • Literary Devices: Victorian era, Escapism, Realism, Exposition, Denouement, Contrast, Dilemma, Ballad, Identity, Fantasy, Anthropomorphism, Personification, Nonsense poetry, Development, Onomatopoeia, Existential question, Surrealism, Authorial intent, Comparison, Disparity, Antagonist, Characterisation, Setting, Connotation, Explicit, Implicit, Protagonist, Epiphany, Climax: Trial, Antagonist, Narrative perspective, Themes, Chronology, Symbolism, Emotive Language, Character Arc, Cyclical structure, Simile, Metaphor, Satire, Caucus.

  • Knowledge: The significance of Harry's past and how it shapes his identity; The role of foreshadowing (eg. Snape's actions, the Mirror of Erised) and how it builds tension; How the Philosopher's Stone connects to Voldemort's return and larger conflicts; How Harry, Ron, and Hermione's strengths and weaknesses complement each other; The complexity of Snape's character and his motivations; Dumbledore's wisdom and his emphasis on choices over abilities; Identity and Self-Discovery - Harry's journey in learning he's more than the Boy Who Lived; Friendship and Loyalty - The power of meaningful connections; Moral Choices - The importance of doing what's right, even when it's difficult; Power and Corruption - Voldemort's obsession with immortality versus Dumbledore's belief in love and sacrifice.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Summarise who, what, where, when, why textual comprehension; Construct personal viewpoints in the form of a thesis statement; Construct a topic sentence including writer's method; Embed supporting evidence using ideas from the text; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to.

• Big Question: "How does Harry Potter's understanding of who he is change throughout the novel, and what helps him discover his true identity?"

Term 2: Alice in Wonderland

• Content:

  • Literary Devices: Anthropomorphism, Motifs, Symbols, Identity, Dreams, Social order, Hierarchy, Moral, Fantasy, extraordinary, Characterisation, Setting, Connotation, Explicit, Implicit, Protagonist, Narrative perspective, Themes, Chronology, Dialogue.

  • Knowledge: Lewis Carroll's novel reflects the Victorian era through its critique of rigid social norms, exploration of logic and absurdity, and commentary on childhood imagination versus adult expectations; Alice's journey begins with her curiosity about the White Rabbit, Curiosity can lead to amazing discoveries, but it also requires caution and a willingness to learn from experiences; Alice constantly changes size, symbolising the ups and downs of growing up, She learns to adapt to new situations, teaching readers the importance of flexibility and resilience; The whimsical world of Wonderland highlights the power of imagination and creativity, encouraging readers to think outside the box and embrace their unique ideas; Alice learns that people (or creatures) see the world differently, like the Cheshire Cat's cryptic advice or the Queen of Hearts' irrational behaviour, Respecting different perspectives helps us interact with others thoughtfully; Alice's journey is also a metaphor for self-discovery, She learns who she is and gains confidence in her own identity, a valuable lesson for young readers navigating their own paths.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Summarise who, what, where, when, why textual comprehension; Construct personal viewpoints in the form of a thesis statement; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to; Recall and apply knowledge from Identity- Harry Potter and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

• Big Question: "How does Alice's journey through Wonderland help her understand who she really is? what does she leam about herself by the end of her adventure?"

Term 3: A Midsummer Night's Dream

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: Hierarchy, Patriarchal, Submissive Egotism, Malicious, Ephemeral, Victim, Duality, Consent, Ethical.

  • Literary Devices: Comedy (genre), Monologue, Soliloquy, Prose, Verse, Blank verse, Dialogue, Iambic pentameter.

  • Knowledge: Shakespeare wrote a mixture of tragedies and comedies in the Elizabethan era - he has become one of the world's most famous writers; The Elizabethan world had very different expectations; A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy; Shakespeare's comedies typically start with disorder and by the end, order is restored; Shakespeare explores different types of love within the play around the idea of desire; Shakespeare explores the idea that dreams allow the impossible to happen; Shakespeare explores the concept of power, particularly between genders, to explore its misuse; Shakespeare uses social class and hierarchical structures to create comic relief; How to grammatically construct analytical and imaginative sentence types.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Summarise who, what, where, when, why textual comprehension; Construct personal viewpoints in the form of a thesis statement; Construct a topic sentence including writer's method; Embed supporting evidence using ideas from the text; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to; Recall and apply knowledge from Identity- Harry Potter.

• Big Question: "How do the characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream change when they are in the magical forest, and what does this reveal about their true identities?"

Year 8 English – Protest

Term 1: Animal Farm

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: Authority, Oppression, Manipulation, Tyranny, Propaganda, Equivocation, Scapegoat, Democracy, Rebellion, Corruption, Revolutionise, Deceit.

  • Literary Devices: Rhetoric, Ethos, Logos, Pathos, Anecdote, Rhetorical Question, Direct Address, Anaphora, Cyclical Structure, Allegory, Hyperbole, Anthropomorphism.

  • Knowledge: Protest writing exists in various formats: speeches, poems, novels, pamphlets, articles play, Writers sometimes used these to create distance between themselves and the subject matter; Orwell wrote Animal Farm in an allegorical style to criticise the corrupt leadership in Europe at the time; In Animal Farm, Orwell covertly criticises the Russian Revolution through the construction of the characters Napoleon, Boxer and Snowball; Rhetoric can appear in many forms of writing - the art of persuasion is used for positive and negative purposes and readers must question the bias; The novel explores themes of manipulation, deception, corruption, oppression; The structure of the novel represents the endless cycle of power abuse in society; How to grammatically construct analytical and imaginative sentence types.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Construct a topic sentence including writer's method; Embed supporting evidence using ideas from the text; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to; Recall and apply knowledge about protest: Animal Farm.

• Big Question: "How do the animals in Animal Farm stand up for their rights, and what can this teach us about standing up for what we believe in?"

Term 2: The Tempest

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: Soliloquy, Severe, Conflict, Betrayal, Chaos, Comedy, Tempest, Power, Magic, Identity, Love, Patriarchy, Revenge.

  • Literary Devices: Romance (genre), Monologue, Soliloquy, Prose, Verse, Blank verse, Dialogue, Iambic pentameter.

  • Knowledge: Shakespeare wrote a mixture of tragedies and comedies in the Elizabethan era - he has become one of the world's most famous writers; The Elizabethan world had very different expectations; The Tempest is a romance/ tragi-comedy; Shakespeare explores different themes of power and control in The Tempest; Shakespeare explores the idea that dreams allow the impossible to happen; Shakespeare explores the concept of power, particularly to explore its misuse; The island setting and Prospero's domination over Caliban reflect early modern European attitudes toward colonisation, Caliban can be interpreted as a symbol of indigenous people, while Prospero represents the colonising force; How to grammatically construct analytical and imaginative sentence types.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Summarise who, what, where, when, why textual comprehension; Construct personal viewpoints in the form of a thesis statement; Construct a topic sentence including writer's methods; Embed evidence supporting evidence using ideas from the text; Evaluate the writer's intention; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to.

• Big Question: "How do the characters in The Tempest challenge authority and fight for freedom, and what can we learn from their actions about standing up for justice?"

Term 3: Identity Poetry

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: Equality, Compassion, Discrimination, Prejudice, Repression, Diversity, Inclusion/exclusion, Stigmatised.

  • Literary Devices: Free Verse, Juxtaposition, Enjambment, Caesura, Volta, Plosive, Fricative, Tone.

  • Knowledge: Poetry provides a voice to the voiceless and is an opportunity to explore challenging, stigmatised topics; In the society we live promotes tolerance, fairness and that everyone has the right to live their lives within the rule of law; Poetry sometimes follows very specific rules in its form e.g. sonnet, but these are also deliberately broken; How to grammatically construct analytical and imaginative sentence types.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Summarise who, what, where, when, why textual comprehension; Analyse language structure and poetic form; Extend and recognize different arguments; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to; Recall and apply knowledge from Protest: The Tempest and Animal Farm; Discuss connections between different poems and themes within texts.

• Big Question: "How do poets such as Maya Angelou's express the power of standing up against injustice, and what can we learn from their words about the importance of protest?"

Term 1: The Hunger Games

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: dystopia, power, wealth, hierarchy, trilogy, science fiction, rebellion, remorse, forgiveness, Theseus, Minotaur, Greek tragedy, ethics of entertainment, death, oligarchy, morality.

  • Literary Devices: Dystopian fiction, cultural phenomenon of the genre and series, narrative voice, Ideas surrounding-star crossed lovers.

  • Knowledge: Dystopian Society: The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic world called Panem, consisting of 12 districts controlled by the powerful Capitol, highlighting themes of oppression, inequality, and control; The Hunger Games Concept: The Capitol enforces an annual event where one boy and one girl from each district are chosen as "tributes" to fight to the death in a televised event designed to intimidate and suppress rebellion; Katniss Everdeen's Role: As the protagonist, Katniss volunteers to replace her sister Prim in the Hunger Games, demonstrating themes of sacrifice, bravery, and familial love; Survival Skills: Katniss's knowledge of hunting, foraging, and archery plays a crucial role in her ability to survive; Political Themes: The book critiques authoritarian control, propaganda, and the manipulation of media to maintain power; The Role of Alliances: Throughout the Games, Katniss forms key alliances, particularly with Rue and Peeta, emphasizing the importance of trust and human connection in survival; Symbolism of the Mockingjay: The mockingjay represents rebellion and resistance, becoming a symbol of defiance against the Capitol; Emotional Complexities: internal conflict between her feelings for Peeta and her relationship with her best friend Gale; Media Manipulation: The Games are heavily orchestrated for entertainment, revealing how public perception can be shaped through storytelling and performance; Moral Dilemmas: Katniss faces difficult ethical decisions, such as choosing whom to trust and how far she's willing to go to survive.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Construct personal viewpoints in the form of a thesis statement; Construct a topic sentence including writer's method; Embed supporting evidence using ideas from the text; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to; Recall and apply knowledge from: The Hunger Games.

• Big Question: "How does Suzanne Collins use Katniss's narrative voice to create tension and connect readers to her experiences in The Hunger Games?"

Term 2: Romeo and Juliet

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: Bravery, Deceit, Destiny, Dramatic Irony, Elizabethan, Fate, Fickle Flaw, Foreshadow, Gender, Guilt, Honour, Masculinity, morality, Passion, Patriarchy, Power, Prologue, Soliloquy, Sonnet, Tragedy, Violence.

  • Literary Devices: Tragedy (genre), Monologue, Soliloquy, Prose, Verse, Blank verse, Dialogue, Iambic pentameter.

  • Knowledge: How plays were created in the 16th and 17th century; Social and historical contexts of Romeo and Juliet, including: Gender, Fate, Destiny, Elizabethan Era; Themes including: Italy vs England, Masculinity, Honour, Marriage; Elizabethan beliefs of Italy and Italians; key characters and stereotypes; Historical influences such as 'Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet'; Aspects of Shakespeare's tragedy including 'Courtly love' in the Medieval and Elizabethan period; Ideas about traditional masculinity and male honour.

  • Skills: Explain their opinions in their own words; Construct personal viewpoints in the form of a thesis statement; Construct a topic sentence including writer's method; Embed supporting evidence using ideas from the text; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to.

• Big Question: "How does Juliet's voice evolve throughout Romeo and Juliet, and what does her changing perspective reveal about her character and the themes of love and identity?"

Term 3: Unseen Poetry

• Content:

  • Vocabulary: Nuanced, Empower, Ambiguous, Despairing, Futility, Familial, Unconventional, Exasperation.

  • Literary Devices: Persona, Sonnet, Octave, Sestet, Motif, Assonance, Consonance, Cliché.

  • Knowledge: Being able to read and interpret poetry in timed conditions (does not mean you have to be able to annotate in depth); That different people can have different opinions on what poetry means and these different opinions stem from our different experiences of the world and they are nuanced; Poetry does not have to be 'understood' to be analysed, even the smallest parts of individual words make meaning; How to grammatically construct analytical and imaginative sentence types; The three things, about three things unseen poetry strategy; How to take the sentence types learned, craft them into paragraphs to write an extended essay using the 'three things about three things unseen poetry strategy'.

  • Skills: Plan an unseen poetry essay; Explain their opinions in their own words; Summarise who, what, where, when, why textual comprehension; Controlling idea (part of the thesis); Extend and recognise different arguments; Evaluate the writer's intent; Speak with confidence to other students, building on the ideas and comments of others and elevating their vocabulary when challenged to; Understand VITALS.

• Big Question: "How do the different voices in one of the unseen poems studied help convey the poem's message or theme, and how can understanding these voices deepen our interpretation of the poem?"

Term 1: A Christmas Carol & Speaking and Listening

• Content:

  • A Christmas Carol: This novella is our chosen set text for the 19th century novel section of Paper 1 of the exam. Assessment focuses on AO1, AO2, and AO3. Keywords include Protagonist, Industrial Revolution, Foil, Malthusian theory, Allegory, Narrative voice, Redemption, Purgatory, Consequence, Christmas Spirit, Benevolence, Supernatural. Focus areas include Victorian literature: Christianity, morals, and redemption. Pupils look back at aspects of Victorian life using previous knowledge built up in Key Stage 3. Pupils study the text in depth, looking at character, themes, writer's viewpoint and context, providing practice of language and structure analysis and working on constructing analytical essays.

  • Speaking and Listening (2 weeks): The assessment will be separately endorsed and will cover AO7, AO8 and AO9 for spoken language. The aim is to allow students to demonstrate their speaking and listening skills by giving a presentation in a formal context, responding appropriately to questions and to feedback, asking questions themselves to elicit clarification, and using spoken Standard English. Presentations take place in a formal setting and pupils are awarded a grade based on their performance and also their answering of questions.

• Assessment: Mock Paper: Past paper (A Christmas Carol) & Filmed Sample (Speaking and Listening).

Term 2: Blood Brothers

• Content: Blood Brothers by Willy Russell is our chosen set text for the Modern Prose or Drama section of the Paper 2 Literature exam. Assessment focuses on AO1 and AO3. Keywords include Disparity, Inequality, Nature versus nurture, Juxtaposition, Education, Destiny and Fate, Superstition, Cyclical structure, Thatcherism, Redundancy, Social class, Motives, Religion, Narrator. Context includes Margaret Thatcher, class, and money controlling life and determining fate. Pupils look at aspects of life in the 1980s using previous knowledge built up in Key Stage 3. Pupils study the text in depth, looking at character, themes, writer's viewpoint and context to prepare for the exam through language and structure analysis and constructing analytical essays.

• Assessment: Mock Paper: Past paper.

Term 3: Power and Conflict Poetry, Unseen Poetry & Language Paper 1

• Content:

  • Power and Conflict Poetry: Our chosen set of poems for the Poetry section of the Paper 2 Literature exam. Pupils look at all 15 poems in the anthology, tracking overall themes, writer's messages, poetic devices, authorial intent, semantic field, comparison and contrast, juxtaposition, narrative voice, and context. Assessment includes AO1, AO2, and AO3. Keywords include Futility, Honour, Extended metaphor, Semantic field, Power and conflict, Propaganda, Trauma, Identity, Narrative truth, Corruption.

  • Unseen Poetry: Comparison of an unseen poem through devices and themes to a poem from the anthology, linking contextually, thematically and through consideration of authorial intent.

  • Language Paper 1: Engaging with a range of texts as reading stimulus across creative, real, and relevant contexts. Students learn to read fluently and write effectively, constructing grammatically correct sentences, deploying figurative language, and analysing texts (AO1, AO2, AO4, AO5, AO6). Students will produce a creative text inspired by the topic that they have responded to in Section A to demonstrate their narrative and descriptive skills in response to a written prompt, scenario or visual image.

• Assessment: Mock Paper: Past paper.

Term 1: Language Paper 2 & Macbeth

• Content:

  • Language Paper 2: Develops students' insights into how writers have particular viewpoints and perspectives on issues or themes. It encourages skills in critical reading: identifying the theme and distinguishing between themes, supporting a point of view by referring to evidence in the text, recognising the possibility of and evaluating different responses to a text, using understanding of writers' social, historical and cultural contexts to inform evaluation, and making an informed personal response (AO1, AO2, AO3). Involves reading two linked sources from different time periods and genres in order to consider how each presents a perspective or viewpoint to influence the reader.

  • Macbeth: Macbeth by William Shakespeare is our chosen set text for the Shakespeare section of Paper 1 of the exam. Keywords include Regicide, Prophecy, Patriarchal society, Supernatural, Subversion of gender roles, Hamartia, Tragic hero, Soliloquy, Tyrant, Ambition. Pupils look back at aspects of Elizabethan life using previous knowledge built up in Key Stage 3. Pupils study the text in depth, looking at character, themes, writer's viewpoint and context, preparing them for the exam through practice of language and structure analysis and constructing analytical essays.

• Assessment: Mock Paper: Past paper.

Term 2: Power and Conflict Poetry & Language Paper 1 Revision

• Content:

  • Power and Conflict Poetry: Re-analysis of all 15 poems in the anthology, reviewing overall themes, writer's messages, poetic devices, authorial intent, semantic field, comparison and contrast, juxtaposition, narrative voice, and context.

  • Unseen Poetry: Comparing unseen poems through devices and themes to an anthology poem, linking contextually, thematically, and through authorial intent (AO1, AO2, AO3). Keywords include Futility, Honour, Extended metaphor, Semantic field, Power and conflict, Propaganda, Trauma, Identity, Narrative truth, Corruption.

  • Language Paper 1 Review: Engaging students in creative texts and inspiring them to write creatively themselves, using analytical skills built in Years 7–10. Language Paper 1 ensures students can read fluently and write effectively, demonstrating a confident control of Standard English using grammar, correct sentences, figurative language, and analysing texts.

• Assessment: Mock Paper: Past paper.

Term 3: Final Revision & Exam Prep

• Content: Full comprehensive content TBC / final revision unit covering high-order reading, critical thinking skills, and past paper applications across all components of Language and Literature.

• Assessment: Mock Paper: Past paper.