Education Links

English

 

Our English program at Education Links has been designed to inspire and motivate students, providing appropriate stretch and challenge whilst ensuring, as far as possible, that the assessments and texts are accessible to our full range of students. English is the backbone of our curriculum offering as we believe that cross-curricular success follows the mastery of reading, writing and spoken language.

 

Our 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. Our approach to Spoken Language and Speaking and Listening emphasises the importance of the wider benefits that effective communication skills both in an educational setting and beyond. The qualification choices ensure a broad and balanced curriculum and our reading lessons aim to foster a love of reading to enable life-long learning empowering our students to be confident individuals who can independently achieve success in their communities.

 

Curriculum Content

  • AQA GCSE in English Language 
  • AQA GCSE in English Literature 
  • Functional Skills Programme
  • Edexcel Functional Skills Levels 1/2
  • Edexcel Functional Skills Entry Levels 1/2/3 
  • Reading for Enrichment

 

AQA GCSE English Language

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.

Students should be able to:

  • read a wide range of texts, fluently and with good understanding
  • read critically, and use knowledge gained from wide reading to inform and improve their own writing
  • write effectively and coherently using standard English appropriately
  • use grammar correctly, punctuate and spell accurately
  • acquire and apply a wide vocabulary, alongside a knowledge and understanding of grammatical terminology, and linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language
  • listen to and understand spoken language, and use spoken standard English effectively. 

 

AQA Assessment Objectives

  • AO1: Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas and select and synthesise evidence from different texts
  • AO2: Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views
  • AO3: Compare writers’ ideas and perspectives, as well as how these are conveyed, across two or more texts
  • AO4: Evaluate texts critically and support this with appropriate textual references
  • AO5: Communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively, selecting and adapting tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences. Organise information and ideas, using structural and grammatical features to support coherence and cohesion of texts
  • AO6: Candidates must use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation. (This requirement must constitute 20% of the marks for each specification as a whole.)
  • AO7: Demonstrate presentation skills in a formal setting
  • AO8: Listen and respond appropriately to spoken language, including to questions and feedback on presentations
  • AO9: Use spoken standard English effectively in speeches and presentations.

 

AQA GCSE English Literature

This course encourages students to develop knowledge and skills in reading, writing and critical thinking. Through literature, students have a chance to develop culturally and acquire knowledge of the best that has been thought and written. Studying GCSE English Literature should encourage students to read widely for pleasure, and as a preparation for studying literature at a higher level. 

This course should also encourage students to: 

  • read a wide range of classic literature fluently and with good understanding, and make connections across their reading 

  • read in depth, critically and evaluatively, so that they are able to discuss and explain their understanding and ideas 

  • develop the habit of reading widely and often 

  • appreciate the depth and power of the English literary heritage 

  • write accurately, effectively and analytically about their reading, using Standard English 

  • acquire and use a wide vocabulary, including the grammatical terminology and other literary and linguistic terms they need to criticise and analyse what they read.

 

Assessment Objectives

  • AO1: Read, understand and respond to texts. Students should be able to: maintain a critical style and develop an informed personal response; use textual references, including quotations, to support and illustrate interpretations. 
  • AO2: Analyse the language, form and structure used by a writer to create meanings and effects, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate. 
  • AO3: Show understanding of the relationships between texts and the contexts in which they were written. 
  • AO4: Use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

 

Main Focus of Study

  • Macbeth

  • A Christmas Carol

  • An Inspector Calls

  • Poetry - War and Conflict

 

Functional Skills English

The Functional Skills English curriculum enables students of all abilities to develop the skills required for functional and effective reading, writing and speaking and listening within real life contexts including project based learning.

Our literacy program offers students the opportunity to explore a wide range of fiction and non-fiction based texts to help improve vocabulary and develop higher-order reading and critical thinking skills that will encourage genuine enquiry into different topics and themes.

Our approach to speaking and listening emphasises the importance of the wider benefits that oracy skills have for students. Students have drawn upon a range of texts as reading stimulus and have engaged with creative, as well as real and relevant contexts including presentations and discussions set in formal and informal scenarios.

The assessment suite includes the Edexcel Functional Skills qualification in English at Entry Levels 1, 2 and 3, and is followed by the Edexcel Functional Skills qualification in English at Level 1 and Level 2. All qualifications comprise of three assessment components which are internally and/or externally assessed: reading, writing and speaking, listening and communication. Students are entered for each assessment as appropriate.

 

Purpose

The qualifications give learners the opportunity to:

  • gain a qualification for work, study and life
  • demonstrate the ability at an appropriate level to read, write, speak, listen and communicate in English
  • apply these skills effectively to a range of purposes in the workplace and in other real life situations.

 

Aim and Outcomes

The qualification gives learners the opportunity to:

  • Listen, understand and make relevant contributions to discussions with others in a range of contexts
  • Apply their understanding of language to adapt delivery and content to suit audience and purpose
  • Read a range of different text types confidently and fluently, applying their knowledge and understanding of texts to their own writing
  • Write texts of varying complexity, with accuracy, effectiveness, and correct spelling, punctuation and grammar
  • Understand the situations when, and audiences for which, planning, drafting.

 

 

 

 

 

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