Most pupils take two GCSEs - English and English Liter­at­ure

How are English and English Liter­at­ure taught?
The two subjects are taught as a combined course over two years. The skills deman­ded by the two subjects are closely related and both are designed to help you learn how language works. The four main skills of speak­ing, listen­ing, read­ing and writ­ing are developed during the course. The course­work and exam­in­a­tion units are designed to improve and assess your learn­ing in these areas and to give you a broad exper­i­ence of the many differ­ent ways language is used.

GCSE English

GCSE English allows you to demon­strate your abil­ity to use English in real life contexts and uses an invest­ig­at­ive and analyt­ical approach to language topics, draw­ing on personal experience.

The course is assessed through a combin­a­tion of Controlled Assess­ments and External exam­in­a­tion. The Controlled Assess­ments account for 40% of the total marks.  These cover Exten­ded Read­ing, Creat­ive Writ­ing and Spoken Language Study.  The External exam­in­a­tion, also worth 40%, is two hours long and involves a Read­ing task and a Writ­ing task based on Non-fiction texts.

Finally oral work is assessed through Speak­ing and Listen­ing Controlled Assess­ments that cover the final 20% of the course marks.

English Language GCSE provides you with the essen­tial skills and know­ledge that you need in order to commu­nic­ate in speech and writ­ing in a range of situ­ations.  It encour­ages you to be an active and discrim­in­at­ing reader.  Above all it promotes curi­os­ity and enjoy­ment of language in all its aspects.

Specific­a­tion: AQA English Language 4707
Click here to down­load the current specific­a­tion for this GCSE course.

GCSE English Literature

English Liter­at­ure GCSE is taught along­side, and as an integ­ral part of, English GCSE. The aims of the course are to promote and encour­age the enjoy­ment of read­ing a range of liter­ary texts and to develop a sense of the personal, social and cultural signi­fic­ance of what you have read. You will be helped to develop the skills needed to write coher­ently and creat­ively about literature.

You will study texts from Shakespeare, poetry from the AQA antho­logy and modern prose or drama.  The course is assessed through a combin­a­tion of external exam­in­a­tions and controlled assessments.

Unit 1:  Explor­ing Modern Texts accounts for 40% of the marks.  This is an External exam­in­a­tion of 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Section A:     Modern prose or dramaS­ec­tion B:     Explor­ing cultures.

Unit 2:  Poetry Across Time is also assessed by an exam­in­a­tion of 1 hour and 15 minutes and is worth 35% of the total GCSE mark.
Section A:     Poetry cluster from the antho­logy.
Section B:     Respond­ing to an unseen poem.

Unit 3:  The Signi­fic­ance of Shakespeare and the English Liter­acy Herit­age.
This is a controlled assess­ment and worth 25% of the total GCSE mark.
You have up to 4 hours to write your essay.

The antho­logy will be avail­able in both print and digital versions with inter­act­ive resources to encour­age them­atic approaches to the poetry studied.

We want to encour­age your enjoy­ment and appre­ci­ation of liter­at­ure through inde­pend­ent enquiry, reflec­tion and clear expres­sion of thoughts and opinions.

Specific­a­tion: AQA English Liter­at­ure 4712
Click here to down­load the current specific­a­tion for this GCSE course.