English
The English Department’s aim is to ensure that Francis Holland girls become skillful, confident and perceptive in using and responding to English in all of its aspects.
We hope to offer a set of experiences that foster and develop a lifelong habit of reading for pleasure. We aim to provide academic rigour through creative and stimulating lessons.
We encourage pupils to:
- Love reading;
- Read with understanding in order to be able to make critical judgements;
- Develop confidence as speakers, readers and writers.
Lower School
At each year of Key Stage 3, pupils at Francis Holland study one prose text, one Shakespeare play, a wide range of poetry, a contemporary play, a selection of diverse short stories and non-fiction texts. Reading for pleasure is encouraged both inside and outside the classroom. Our Key Stage 3 Programme of Study is rich, varied and constantly developing in order to provide pupils with access to experiences and ideas that give a broad portrayal of life as possible.
Middle School
In Years 10 and 11, pupils study towards both English Literature and English Language GCSEs. We follow the OCR course.
The Literature requirements are rigorous. We tend to choose the more demanding texts from the set lists to encourage pupils to think well beyond the demands of GCSE. For example, pupils are currently studying Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Pupils also respond to a Shakespeare text, a contemporary text, a poetry anthology and a selection of unseen poetry and prose.
The OCR Language course consists of two examinations, which test a variety of skills. Pupils have to analyse, compare and evaluate short nineteenth and twentieth century extracts for the reading requirements.
Sixth Form
We follow the OCR A Level course. Pupils study for two examination components and one non-examined component.
The first examination offers the opportunity to engage in the close reading of a Shakespeare play, such as Measure for Measure, and two linked texts, one drama and one poetry, written before 1900. Currently, this is The Duchess of Malfi compared to Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale.
The second examination consists of a close reading exercise of an unseen passage of prose and a comparative essay on a chosen topic area. Our chosen topic area is ‘Women in Literature’; our core text is Sense and Sensibility and the secondary text is Jane Eyre.
For the non-examined component, pupils will study three twentieth and twenty-first century texts, such as The War Poetry of Wilfred Owen, A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.
The Department offers a huge variety of exciting co-curricular activities, including:
- Literary Society
- Creative Writing Society
- Junior Book Club
- Senior Book Club
- Debating Club
- Internal competitions, such as the Whole School Poetry Competition
- Shakespeare workshops for Lower School classes
We also run regular theatre trips, particularly for A Level students. In addition, we offer a range of internal lectures and talks by our specialist staff as well as talks by visiting authors and critics. In the Spring Term, we host the FHS Literary Festival, which is an exciting week full of guest speakers and authors.
We work very closely with Miss Lawrence, our Librarian, who stocks a wide variety of books and is well placed to advise girls on choosing titles suitable for them. The Library is also extremely well-resourced to enhance the study of English at GCSE and A Level. Articles from English journals can be located there, and girls also have online access to these.
The Department subscribes to the English and Media Centre ‘eMag’ magazine; students also have access to the online archive, giving them access to a broad range of scholarly articles.
