A Letter of Introduction

This unit offers students the opportunity to introduce themselves to their new class teacher, and to learn about the importance of adapting their language (both in speech and in writing) to suit different purposes and audiences.

• Using formal and informal language appropriately
• Understanding layout / form features

GL Assessment

STAR Reading

ATL assessment

The History of the English Language - An introduction

This unit offers the students the opportunity to explore the origins of the language that we call "English".  It helps them to understand the basics of etymology, the reasons for unusual spellings, and also explore the rich and diverse cultural heritage of our ever-evolving language.

Knowledge test:

Key influences on language development; origins of surnames / place names.

An introduction to symbolism, imagery and inference

Technical term test

A series of descriptions & poems: assess for use of key language devices

STAR Reading Assessment

An introduction to Poetry

Poetry as a form of writing can often seem off-putting to students as it is quite unfamiliar.  In this unit, we hope to encourage students to understand and express themselves through poetry to understand how poetry "intensifies" language by using a range of language devices.

• Poetic language, form and structure

The Classics and their Conventions: Reading and Creating conventional fiction narratives.

In this unit, we introduce students to the core knowledge of conventional narrative features in terms of plot, setting and character.

Students will study a number of extracts from "classic" texts to help identify these features.

As the students learn these different features, they will apply them to their own original writing, as they try to mimic the conventional features of these famous texts.

STAR Reading assessment

Writing assessment