The Thomas Lord Audley School
Teacher of English – September 2015
The experienced team has worked extremely hard to raise standards over the last 3 years and achievement in KS3 has improved significantly in that period of time.
The department has drawn on the experience and expertise of its members to develop resources, schemes of work and innovative teaching methods. Through sharing good practice, ideas and working together, a range of interesting and attractive teaching materials have been developed. However, there isroom for enthusiastic members to contribute new ideas to develop further the new syllabus and move the department forward.
All schemes of work include comprehensive resources, linked to National Curriculum objectives and Assessment Foci.
The school follows a one-week timetable and each period is 50 minutes long, with Years 7 to 11 allocated four periods per week for English.
The department enjoys close links with the library, with all Year 7 students following a comprehensive induction process. Also, in Years 7 and 8 students follow an ICT based reading scheme (Accelerated Reader) that has resulted in significant improvements in reading ages.
The English department is housed within six classrooms and is based in the main block of the school building. All full time teaching staff have their own dedicated classroom; there is also a large, well equipped work room. There are three central stock rooms for English which are conveniently situated between the classrooms, offering storage for class sets of teaching materials and also additional storage space for personal resources.
The department is well-resourced with course books, literary texts and a variety of teaching materials. Dictionaries and Thesauruses are available in each teaching room and five rooms are equipped with Interactive Whiteboards and some with integrated DVD/video players.
The department is involved in the training of SCITT students, who are attached to classes across the department.
At present students are taught in sets for both Key Stage 3 and for the GCSE English and English Literature courses in Years 10 and 11. Key Stage 3 setting arrangements are based on National Curriculum levels and teacher assessment.
GCSE groups are organised on the basis of Year 9 teacher assessments, as well as KS2 entry levelsand the suitability of the student to GCSE specifications on offer.
Emily Bryant
Lead Teacher of English