Beths
Grammar
School

English

Department Vision: 

Our vision for the English Department is that all students acquire the skills to confidently articulate perceptive and sensitive written and spoken responses to ideas from a range of challenging and thought-provoking fiction and non-fiction texts. Units of work cover classic literary prose from the C19 and C20, whole Shakespeare plays and modern drama texts and a range of poetry from different times and cultures. Through the study of these units students will develop their critical reading skills, writing extended analytical responses. Students are also taught how to improve their creative writing skills and to write confidently for a range of purposes and audiences. Students in years 7 and 8 also benefit from fortnightly ‘Lets Think in English’ lessons that have been carefully researched and designed by Kings College London in order to improve the thinking processes behind better writing.         


To prepare Year 11's for their A Levels, please find a list below of complementary reading for this subject:

English Language Any test by David Crystal, 'Eats Shoots and Leaves' - Lynn Truss; 'The Adventure of English'; Melvyn Bragg; Radio 4 - Word of Mouth programmes - see BBC Sounds
English Literature 'Frankenstein' Mary Shelly; 'Dracula' Bram Stoker; 'A Handmaid's Tale' Atwood - Any other Atwood text; 'Brave New World' Aldous Huxley; any Shakespeare text: Specifically 'Othello' and 'Hamlet'; Guides in the 'Cambridge Contexts in Literature' series: 'Romanticism', 'Shakespearean and Jacobean Tragedy', 'Gothic Literature', 'Women's writing: Past and Present'; 'Radio 4 - In Our Time' programmes - see BBC Sounds