The English A Team

giphy

We pity the fool that doesn’t want to join our English A Team. (See what we did there? No? Never mind.)

What is the English A Team?

The English A Team is a group for students in Years 10 and 11 who are aiming for grades 7, 8 and 9 in their English GCSE exams.

What does it involve?

Members of the A Team will have access to a series of after-school sessions designed to enrich their experiences of English, and improve their chances of securing the top grades.

Do I have to attend all of these sessions?

No, you don’t – but the more you attend, the better we think you’ll do. And we will have to remove any students from the A Team who don’t turn up to at least one of the first three sessions, in order to make room for other students.

Who can join?

Anyone in Year 10 or Year 11 who wants to achieve a grade 7, 8 or 9 in English.

How do I sign up?

To join the A Team, you need to get a parent/carer to complete the form here.

You can then see which sessions are coming up on our dedicated A Team page – the link is at the top of this page.

When’s the first session?

Just after half term. The date, time and location can be found on our A Team calendar – click on the A Team link at the top of this page.

Do I need to sign up for each session?

Yep. There will be a sign up sheet for each session outside the English staff room in L Block. It will be up two weeks before each session, and places are first come, first served.

Who can I contact if I have questions?

Miss Marvin is our English Enrichment Coordinator. You can email her on l.marvin@lutterworthcollege.com, or pop up to L3 to see her.

We look forward to welcoming you to the team!

Miss Marvin and Mr Shovlin

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing to describe with Year 10.

funfair

At the start of the year, all of our Year 10 students produced a piece of descriptive writing.

They had a choice of two tasks: either to write a description inspired by the picture of the fairground above, or to write a description of a person they admire.

You can find a selection of their work in the comments on this post.

If you’d like to add some of your own, feel free.

Other students can then use it for inspiration for future descriptive tasks.

And the winner of our summer megatest challenge is…

Announced in this video…

Error
This video doesn’t exist

Congratulations – your £10 prize will be on your student account shortly!

 

Two Sentence Story Competition

Two Sentence Story

Enjoy creative writing? Think you could do better than the two-sentence story above? Then enter the English Faculty’s Two Sentence Story Competition. We’ve got a load of exciting prizes to give away to our lucky winners.

There’s only one rule: your story must contain only two sentences.

To enter, submit your story here by Friday 30th September.

Good luck!

A Level Language students: want to see a top grade exemplar for Section A of the Year 12 exam?

Your wish is our command.

Hannah Franks and Abbi Lowden have kindly allowed us to share their exam papers so that you can see what makes an A grade response to the Year 12 exam.

Below, you’ll find the paper, the mark scheme, and two A grade responses to it.

We hope it’s useful.

A Level English Language Exam – Year 12 – June 2016

A Level English Language Exam – Textual Analysis Mark Schemes

A Grade Exemplar – Section A (Textual Variations and Representations) 1

A Grade Exemplar – Section A (Textual Variations and Representations) 2

 

 

 

 

Incoming Year 8s and 9s: your holiday homework is here!

The summer holidays are not just a time for relaxing and watching the horizon scroll by; they’re also a time for taking risks and challenging yourself. We’d like you to use some of your holiday reading great books.

Your Tasks

  1. We’d like you to take home your Library Lesson Reading Booklet and complete the final tasks on A Christmas Carol
  2. We’d like you to aim to read at least four books (preferably more!) over the holiday.

Our Advice

  • Double check that the books are on the Accelerated Reader system before getting stuck in. (You can, of course, read books that aren’t on the system – but you won’t be able to get points for these.)
  • Try to pick books that fit within your Accelerated Reader ZPD range. You can find this by logging in to AR and checking the Progress tab.
  • If you are struggling to find a book then don’t forget you can access our virtual library.

If you have any trouble logging in to AR, you can contact Mr Smith by email over the holiday: m.smith@lutterworthcollege.com.

Enjoy the break!

Summer homework for incoming Year 11s

Refinery 29 GIFs summer high school musical summer break refinery29 GIF

Going to be in Year 11 in August?

Then this post is for you!

Before your first lesson back after the summer holiday, you need to have completed the following tasks. Bring your completed work with you to your first English lesson.

1. Complete the revision tests on An Inspector Calls and The Sign of Four.

They are both 75 questions long, and test your knowledge of each text’s story and key quotations.

(Note: you cannot save your progress in either test, so make sure you set aside plenty of time to complete them.)

When you’ve submitted your answers, you will be emailed your results. (Make sure you enter your email address very carefully as a mistake will result in your score not being recorded.)

The pass mark for each test is 80%. If you fail to achieve this mark, you’ll need to do some revision of the text before having another go.

Make sure you print off your results emails to show to your English teacher. (If you don’t have a printer, you’ll need to print the emails off at school when you come back.)

You’ll find the links to the tests below:

An Inspector Calls revision test

The Sign of Four revision test

2. Find definitions for the Top 40 Poetic Terms you’ll find below.

The Top 40 Poetic Terms

You can present these definitions however works best for you.

A sample definition for you to give you the idea of what we’re after:

  • Alliteration: When words that are close together start with the same sound. For example, Two wrongs don’t make a right.

If you get stuck, we recommend that you:

  • Check the glossary at the back of the CGP Love and Relationships Poetry Guide many of you have already bought from the library. (It’s available online here.)
  • Search for the term online. (On Google, typing ‘define [term]’ will give you an accessible definition, as below.)

Define Alliteration

If you have any questions about any of this work, you can get in touch with us on Twitter, or by email (m.smith@lutterworthcollege.com).

Enjoy the holidays!

The English Faculty

 

 

 

Year 10: Want to see some Grade 8 Writing with a Viewpoint work?

 

Look no further.

A couple of weeks ago, you all sat the following assessment:

‘Young people spend far too much time on social networks. It’s damaging their education, endangering their safety and destroying their ability to communicate.’

Write a letter to a broadsheet newspaper in which you explain your point of view on this statement.

Below, you’ll find two exceptionally strong responses to that task.

See if you can work out why they achieved such high marks:

Grade 8 Writing with a Viewpoint Exemplars