English

English is where enquiring minds are fostered, where young people have the chance to learn how to express themselves eloquently and with decency, where the most difficult philosophical and societal questions are debated and explored, where the pages of a book transport our youths to cultures, histories, ideas and worlds beyond their own personal experiences and where creativity is cultivated and nurtured. The moral duty of any school must be to teach young people what they ought to learn, not simply because it is on a GCSE specification, but because of its intrinsic value. By valuing what is truly important in the English classroom: enquiry, culture, creativity, reading, writing and oracy, our English curriculum has been designed to prepare our girls for life beyond our classroom.

The curriculum at Key Stage 3 has been carefully designed to link with the requirements of the GCSE English Literature and English Language specification – everything the girls study from Year 7 onwards will help students to prepare for their English studies at Key Stage 4. However, this is not to say that the curriculum is not varied. On the contrary, students will write articles, stories, poems, letters and much more and will study the work of Shakespeare, Dickens, Armitage, Duffy and Browning but to name a few, as well as a range of modern dramatists and novelists. At Key Stage 4, the girls will continue to hone their writing skills in preparation for the English Language exam, focussing specifically on points of view writing and narrative and descriptive writing. They will study a range of fiction and non-fiction texts from the 19th, 20th and 21st Century. During the two year course, they will read a modern drama or novel, a 19th century novel, a Shakespeare play and study a collection of poetry. Our main aim in the English Faculty is to provide high quality learning and teaching. Our wish is that every girl leaves Fairfield having gained the highest level of qualifications and feeling proud of their achievements