Our three-year Key Stage 3 Curriculum is as ambitious as the National Curriculum. It is designed to develop vital reading and writing skills as well as encourage ideas and creativity in a challenging, yet supportive environment. Students are taught from the outset to develop analysis skills using a variety of texts alongside the main text. The students acquire skills in creative writing and engage in developing discussion around the notion of family, the past, friendship, poverty, social justice and love. They will secure understanding of reading and comprehending texts and show this in their writing with interleaved study of supporting texts and activities being a mainstay of students’ learning experience. Literacy is addressed through explicit teaching of vocabulary and a reading development programme. We also target comprehension and fluency through faster reading of a new text at the beginning of the year.
| Year | Term | Topic | Type Of Assessment | Assessment Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Autumn | Family Fortunes – exploring the world of the child protagonist in A Monster Calls and other stories of family dysfunction | Vocabulary 1 | Week 2 |
| 5 x thesis words | (September) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 2 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (October) | |||
| inference and deduction | ||||
| language and effects | ||||
| writer’s choices and intent | ||||
| Vocabulary 3 (Test 1 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (November) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 4 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for speech writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (December) | |||
| use of rhetoric | ||||
| purpose, audience and form | ||||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure at sentence level | ||||
| Spring | Gothic Horror and the Monster Within – a study of gothic tropes in literature and film | Vocabulary 5 | Week 2 | |
| 5 x thesis words | (January) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 6 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (January) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| writer’s intent | ||||
| Vocabulary 7 (Test 5 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (February) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 8 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for creative writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (March) | |||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure and sentence level | ||||
| Summer | Heroes and Villains – a study of character archetypes in Shakespeare and other works | Vocabulary 9 | Week 2 | |
| 5 x thesis words | (May) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 10 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (May) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| writer’s choices and intent | ||||
| Vocabulary 11 (Test 9 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (June) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 12 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for creative writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (June) | |||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure at sentence level | ||||
| 8 | Autumn | Postcards from the Edge – the lives and loves of the underclass explored in The Outsiders by S E Hinton | Vocabulary 1 | Week 2 |
| 5 x thesis words | (September) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 2 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (October) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| effects of structure | ||||
| voice | ||||
| writer’s intent | ||||
| Vocabulary 3 (Test 1 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (November) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 4 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for letter writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (December) | |||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure in paragraphs | ||||
| Spring | Rite of Passage – class consciousness in Our Day Out by Willy Russell and other journeys of self-discovery | Vocabulary 5 | Week 2 | |
| 5 x thesis words | (January) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 6 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (January) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| effects of structure | ||||
| voice | ||||
| writer’s intent | ||||
| Vocabulary 7 (Test 5 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (February) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 8 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for creative writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (March) | |||
| structure in paragraphs | ||||
| Summer | Brawling Love of Hate – examining racial prejudice in The Merchant of Venice and other related works | Vocabulary 9 | Week 2 | |
| 5 x thesis words | (May) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 10 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (May) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| effects of structure | ||||
| voice | ||||
| writer’s intent | ||||
| Vocabulary 11 (Test 9 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (June) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 12 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for creative writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (June) | |||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure in paragraphs | ||||
| 9 | Autumn | Songs of the Self – an examination of personal and social identity through time in poetry and prose fiction | Vocabulary 1 | Week 2 |
| 5 x thesis words | (September) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 2 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (October) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| effects of structure | ||||
| voice | ||||
| writer’s intent | ||||
| evaluation | ||||
| comparison | ||||
| Vocabulary 3 (Test 1 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (November) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 4 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for formal letter writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (December) | |||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure for effect | ||||
| conscious crafting | ||||
| use of rhetoric | ||||
| Spring | Rage Against the Machine – the dystopian universe revealed in George Orwell’s Animal Farm and other related futures, both real and imagined | Vocabulary 5 | Week 2 | |
| 5 x thesis words | (January) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 6 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (January) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| effects of structure | ||||
| voice | ||||
| writer’s intent | ||||
| evaluation | ||||
| comparison | ||||
| Vocabulary 7 (Test 5 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (February) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 8 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for creative writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (March) | |||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure for effect | ||||
| conscious crafting | ||||
| use of rhetoric | ||||
| Summer | Anthems for Doomed Youth – Flawed heroes and tragic heroines in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and other seminal works | Vocabulary 9 | Week 2 | |
| 5 x thesis words | (May) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Reading 10 | Week 4 | |||
| 5 x comprehension questions on extract from text – core reading skills targeted include: | (May) | |||
| language and effects | ||||
| effects of structure | ||||
| voice | ||||
| writer’s intent | ||||
| evaluation | ||||
| comparison | ||||
| Vocabulary 11 (Test 9 repeated) | Week 8 | |||
| 5 x thesis words | (June) | |||
| 5 x method (Tier 3) words | ||||
| 5 x text related (Tier 2) words | ||||
| Writing 12 | Week 10 | |||
| 5 x language and method questions in preparation for speech writing task – core writing skills targeted include: | (June) | |||
| content and organisation | ||||
| technical accuracy | ||||
| structure for effect | ||||
| conscious crafting | ||||
| use of rhetoric |