On developing a more mindful English curriculum at KS3

A lot of my thoughts have drifted towards creating the perfect KS3 curriculum over the last couple of years, and after getting the chance to review ours, it has taken over many a daydream on the way to and from work! I love KS3 for the sheer range of possibilities we have in English if we are brave enough to free ourselves from the tyranny of exam specifications. After a few conversations on Twitter, and to verbalise some of my thought processes, I've decided to write this blog which discusses some of the decisions we have made when reviewing our KS3 curriculum.

The first step when reviewing the curriculum was asking the following questions: 

• What do we want to achieve?
• What works or doesn’t work in our current curriculum?
• What resources do we already have (books and text books)?
• What will a pupil experience over the course of our KS3 curriculum? 

I want our curriculum to allow pupils to experience a broad range of texts which give them a grounding in the literary canon as well as exposing them to a range of viewpoints and perspectives.

As with many KS3 curriculums, our current one had been tweaked and changed in line with specification changes in KS4. Lots of work has already been done to make the journey more coherent but there are still elements which were not clearly thought out or sequenced. There are lots of opportunities for teacher autonomy through a range of text choices but there are sometimes not a clarity or consistency in what pupils should have learned by the end of it.  

As with anything, for changes to be effective it is important to utilise the resources we already have. Therefore, when redesigning our curriculum it was often about resequencing the curriculum rather than starting from scratch.

What did we change?

In our previous Y7 curriculum we started with Shakespeare after a short autobiographical writing unit. It made sense to swap this with the modern novel unit for various reasons. Firstly, there is a huge cognitive load on pupils making the transition from Y6 to Y7. We need to introduce and develop a range of skills, from inference, to language analysis to academic writing. This is a big task in and of itself. Doing this through Shakespeare initially means that pupils have to do this with language which can be daunting and intimidating. Therefore, by starting with a modern novel, which uses language much more accessible and familiar to them, they can concentrate on developing these new skills more effectively.

Text Choice:

We have removed ‘tired’ texts such as Skellig and Private Peaceful as we found that often they had read them in primary school and we were not really exposing them to different perspectives. I am not saying there is no merit in these texts but as we had the budget to invest in new texts so it seemed a good opportunity to reassess our novel choices here.

We decided on a choice of three texts, Salt to the Sea, The Island at the End of Everything and The Bone Sparrow. With these text choices we have tried to ensure that pupils will be exposed to diverse perspectives as well as having some a rich context behind the texts which will provide lots of opportunity for extra reading.

Modern Play to Shakespeare:

By switching the novel and Shakespeare, it meant that there was a more logical progression. Pupils could build on their inference and textual analysis skills and be introduced to key features of drama. Therefore, by the time they move onto the Shakespeare unit they will have a grounding in the skills and knowledge needed.

Non Fiction Reading:

To ensure consistency in teaching, our curriculum has always had separate non fiction reading units. Previously these were through a specific ‘exam skills for KS3’ type textbook. We wanted to get rid of this as it felt too exam or KS4 focussed and teachers within the department did not feel enthusiastic about it. Therefore, we have developed a non fiction writing unit which is thematic, based on the theme of ‘interesting lives’ which fits in nicely with the autobiographical unit they do at the beginning of the year. Again, we have tried to ensure we have included a range of viewpoints and perspectives (such as extracts from Malala Yousafzai, Anne Frank, Joseph Merrick, Roald Dahl and Maya Angelou).

The Y8 curriculum just needed a few tweaks to make it more coherent. The aim of Y8 overall now is about deepening pupils’ canonical understanding. 

Modern Drama/ 19th C Novel: 

The modern drama gives them an experience of two key 19^th century texts to deepen their cultural capital. We use these texts alongside extracts from the originals and use this to produce a piece of creative writing in the style of that text. With the novels, we have kept Animal Farm but swapped out Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for The Time Machine so that pupils will approach those text through the lens of genre (dystopia and science fiction) giving lots of opportunity for pupils to develop their understanding of the genre through their independent reading (each unit will have a reading list that pupils will be encouraged to explore independently). 

Non Fiction: 

Like with the Y7 curriculum, we have changed from an exam focused textbook to a booklet which takes a thematic approach; this time ‘disasters’. This features texts which look at things like the Hillsborough disaster, 19^th century mining disasters, Chernobyl and the Birmingham Church Bombing- all things which will increase their knowledge of key events which will aid their understanding of the context behind other texts. 

Poetry: 

Previously we had a ‘conflict poetry’ unit which focused on WW1 poetry. We are currently working on a new scheme that looks at conflict in a broader sense, with extracts from the Iliad, Paradise Lost as well as modern texts such as Kamikaze and At the Border 1979, again with the aim of giving pupils experience of text across the canon as well as different viewpoints and perspectives. 

The Y9 curriculum aims to prepare pupils for KS4 in a more direct way. The novel choices have been selected as they are texts with the challenge of GCSE study in mind. 

Shakespeare: 

After reflecting on the fact we did not previously teach any Shakespeare in Y9, we decided to introduce a unit that looked at ‘heroes and villains’ from a range of Shakespeare plays. We felt that this would be beneficial for pupils as it would help them understand the context of the plays studied at KS4 by being able to compare and contrast them to a range of plays. We have just completed this unit and both teachers and pupils seemed incredibly engaged with it and the pupils have produced some amazing responses to the texts studied. 

Short Story Anthology: 

As we have just moved to the Edexcel IGCSE specification we felt that looking at a range of short stories through the old AQA short story anthology would be beneficial as the IGCSE Language specification also is heavily based on an anthology of a similar nature. 

Poetry: 

Having studied a range of poems across different time periods in Y7 and Y8, Y9 focuses on unseen poetry, helping pupils develop their skills in approaching poems and developing their own independent interpretations and responses.  

What I’m happy with:

• The sequencing of topics to ensure that skills and knowledge are taught and developed in a coherent way.
• The level of challenge
• The range of perspectives

The next steps:

• The curriculum is a never ending task, and we will reflect and tweak it as we go to ensure we are delivering it in the most effective way.
• One thing I want to reflect on is our writing units. For that reason, I await Jennifer Webb’s new book with baited breath!
• We will also be thinking very carefully about our assessments to ensure we are capturing what pupils are capable of, rather than just using adapted KS4 assessments.