Welcome to the English Curriculum Area page.

English

“English Language has as many perceptive critics as there are fluent readers.  The language as a whole belongs to no-one, yet every one owns a part of it, has an interest in it and has an opinion about it” David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of English Language

Language is at the centre of our lives as a basis for communication, self-expression, power, and questioning the world around us.  In the English department we strongly believe that by developing our students’ language skills we are preparing them for success in their future endeavours. This department empowers the student through excellent subject knowledge, passionate development of pedagogy and empathy with all participants in the learning process. We recognise that being a ‘core’ subject confers both gravitas and a greater responsibility to English teachers, and we accept this challenge with relish.

As the topic of English is so extensive and integral to all of our lives, we offer two GCSE qualifications, English Language and English Literature.   Presently the department are part of the Phase 2 pilot into Functional Skills English which has at its core the vision to make English use functional.  AQA is our examining board and we deliver the GCSEs and the Functional Skills through them.  In September 2009, Functional Skills will become a discrete element to the courses that we deliver at Sharnbrook, while in 2010, the GCSE specifications will be revised.  In this vein, Sharnbrook is at the cutting edge of innovative teaching and curriculum development.

At Advanced Level study we offer English Language and English Literature as separate subjects.  Due to our year on year successes at GCSE, we have a proportionately high take up in Yr 12. We feel that if a student of English is to the truest appreciation of the subject and their role within it, offering extra-curricular and contextual experiences is invaluable.  We invest in trips to museums, the British Library, galleries and more recently National Trust states that offer the students a unique insight into the contextual environment of the texts and topics that they study.

“How did they command such deference – English teachers? Compared to the men who taught physics or biology, what did they really know of the world? It seemed to me, and not only to me, that they knew exactly what was most worth knowing … they tended to be polymaths. Adept as they were at dissection, they would never leave a poem or novel strewn about in pieces like some butchered frog reeking of formaldehyde. They’d stitch it back together with history and psychology, philosophy, religion, and even, on occasion, science. Without pandering to your presumed desire to identify with the hero of a story, they made you feel that what mattered to the writer had consequence for you, too.” Tobias Wolff, Old School (London: Bloomsbury Publishing 2005)

We promote an ethos of independent learning skills, where we are constantly challenging the comfort zones of our students.  By the time the students leave Sharnbrook, be it after GCSE or A level, they are self sufficient, confident and reliable learners.

The English department strive for excellence in an age of brutal philistinism. We glean pebbles of truth from the riverbed of knowledge, and hurl them against the gargantuan forehead of ignorance. 

For further details contact kwilde@sharnbrook.beds.sch.uk

› Click here to view course details for GCSE English
› Click here to view course details for A-Level English Language
› Click here to view course details for A-Level English Literature
› Click here to view course details for GCSE English Post 16