English Language
GCSE
Examining Board
AQA
Course Introduction
Students will draw upon a range of texts as reading stimulus and engage with creative as well as real and relevant contexts. Students will have opportunities to develop higher-order reading and critical thinking skills that encourage genuine enquiry into different topics and themes.
Assessments
Each paper has a distinct identity to better support high quality provision and engaging teaching and learning. Paper 1, Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing, looks at how writers use narrative and descriptive techniques to engage the interest of readers. Paper 2, Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives, looks at how different writers present a similar topic over time.
Paper 1: Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing (1 hour)
Paper 2: Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives (1 hour, 45 min)
Non-examination Assessment: Spoken Language & Separate endorsement (0% weighting of GCSE)
Progression
The course will enable students of all abilities to develop the skills they need to read, understand and analyse a wide range of different texts covering the 19th, 20th and 21st century time periods as well as to write clearly, coherently and accurately using a range of vocabulary and sentence structures.
Course Content
All texts for the examination are unseen. Therefore, the key skills we will develop from Year 9 to Year 11 are:
- Learning to read texts actively and critically
- Employing close reading skills to retrieve information
- Making inferences and giving informed comments on language in use
- Producing texts that are fit for purpose for an audience
- Writing with control and accuracy
Reading
Critical reading and comprehension: identifying and interpreting themes, ideas and information in a range of literature and other high-quality writing; reading in different ways for different purposes, and comparing and evaluating the usefulness, relevance and presentation of content for these purposes; drawing inferences and justifying these with evidence; supporting a point of view by referring to evidence within the text; identifying bias and misuse of evidence, including distinguishing between statements that are supported by evidence and those that are not; reflecting critically and evaluatively on text, using the context of the text and drawing on knowledge and skills gained from wider reading; recognising the possibility of different responses to a text.
Summary and synthesis: identifying the main theme or themes; summarising ideas and information from a single text; synthesising from more than one text evaluation of a writer’s choice of vocabulary, form, grammatical and structural features: explaining and illustrating how vocabulary and grammar contribute to effectiveness and impact, using linguistic and literary terminology accurately to do so and paying attention to detail; analysing and evaluating how form and structure contribute to the effectiveness and impact of a text.
Comparing texts: comparing two or more texts critically with respect to the above.
Writing
Producing clear and coherent text: writing effectively for different purposes and audiences: to describe, narrate, explain, instruct, give and respond to information, and argue; selecting vocabulary, grammar, form, and structural and organisational features judiciously to reflect audience, purpose and context; using language imaginatively and creatively; using information provided by others to write in different forms; maintaining a consistent point of view; maintaining coherence and consistency across a text.
Writing for impact: selecting, organising and emphasising facts, ideas and key points; citing evidence and quotation effectively and pertinently to support views; creating emotional impact; using language creatively, imaginatively and persuasively, including rhetorical devices (such as rhetorical questions, antithesis, parenthesis).
Contact Name
Mrs F Borrett – Head of English
Contact Email
