-
Inspection report 2010
Find out more -
Look around our school
Opportunities to visit us -
Applying for a place
Find out how
English
[Pupils] are most articulate, fluent and clear, with excellent diction, speaking effectively and with grace in formal and informal situations. Pupils are most familiar with the terms of English grammar and syntax. They are often required to take notes and can do so most efficiently.
Teachers convey their own love of their subject. Teaching cultivates in the pupils open-minded curiosity, critical inquiry, and intellectual honesty. In a sixth form English lesson, the teacher asked the pupils, having read the Edith Wharton novel, The Age of Innocence, to consider a learned university paper on narrative techniques in that novel: it was a lesson that resembled a university seminar in the level of literary criticism elicited by the teacher.
(ISI Inspection Report 2010)
English is at the centre of the school’s curriculum. It is a compulsory subject throughout the Lower and Middle Schools and a popular and successful option in the Sixth Form. It is also a subject of unparalleled breadth, requiring pupils to engage with a challenging and fascinating range of skills and topics. We aim to enable every pupil to succeed in the subject: in achievement in public examinations, in the development of essential skills with cross-curricular applications and in the acquisition of understanding which will enable them to participate fully in contemporary social and cultural life with its inherent global dimension.
Our aims:
- To provide, across the school, an English curriculum that is interesting, broad, balanced and challenging; we aim to make our subjects as enjoyable and stimulating as possible, encouraging our pupils’ curiosity and nurturing their confidence.
- To enable all pupils to: become effective and engaging communicators in a variety of contexts (reading; writing; speaking and listening); develop a love of literature in all its forms; become critical readers; synthesise and prioritise information; think and write with independence, initiative and originality; attain proficiency in spelling, punctuation, grammar – and in other aspects of the quality of written communication; become familiar with techniques associated with ICT, media and the moving image.
- To promote, support and encourage – across the school – the central importance of English – both at The Perse and in the wider educational, social and cultural community.
- To enable all pupils to fulfil their academic potential and gain the best possible results in our subjects, including those achieved in public (external) examinations.
- To encourage pupils’ intellectual, cultural and aesthetic personal development – and to contribute towards their spiritual, moral, ethical, and social education.
