Teaching Staff

Curriculum Intent 

The English Department has designed a curriculum which fuses the traditional with the modern, the old with the contemporary to appeal to the rich and diverse community we serve.  From coping with family illness and bullying at school to the positive role of gangs as surrogate families in socially fractured cities, as well as the terrible consequences of power in the wrong hands, the curriculum seeks to both reflect and deflect students’ attention on the here and now; to allow students to engage with the world they know, yes, but to escape from it also through the texts – prose fiction and poetry – we study. This is where Shakespeare comes in. As a key ingredient in this mission our interest in the human condition forms a single thread that is woven into ALL texts as a way for students to explore themselves as unfinished articles just as they do with their fictional contemporaries from day one of Year 7. Our curriculum therefore aims to be relevant and engaging, provocative and challenging, testing and inspirational to help nurture erudite and tolerant individuals as custodians of the medium of communication in an ever-changing world.