English
The English and Media Department at Bullers Wood School For Boys consists of a hardworking and enthusiastic team of teachers. We teach in a suite of six dedicated English classrooms on one floor, on which the library is also situated. Each English classroom has its own promethean interactive screen We also have access to the Mac suite for GCSE Media Studies.
The overarching philosophy of the English and Media department, at Bullers Wood School For Boys, would be one of rewarding high challenge for all. Whether it is the reading of or writing about one of our enduring heritage core texts or the close analysis of one of our curriculum linked diverse contemporary texts, our aim is that all pupils should fulfil their potential in English and leave the School with a love of learning about the subject.
The teaching environment within our calm English classes provides both challenge and enjoyment. The learning culture within our English classrooms is designed to support individual talents and ambitions and helps pupils to grow in their understanding of the world. We also place great importance on forging close relationships with parents and guardians to support them and their sons’ learning whilst here at Bullers.
We firmly believe, as a department, that students’ experiences within the classroom should be built upon through a varied programme of guest speakers and trips. We were recently visited by the Quantum Theatre company who performed in our theatre space a production of A Christmas Carol for our Year 10 boys. We have also arranged visits to the Globe theatre.
The department meets regularly and has developed systems that work for marking, assessment, feedback and progress. We also regularly discuss recent and relevant evidenced research that informs our teaching and evolving approaches to our curriculum.
We teach our pupils the value of constructive questioning , analysis and debate and give them the tools with which to interrogate the world and to form their own ideas and opinions, as well as appreciating and respecting those of others. We work hard to place a high value on the importance of independent reading for pleasure and a range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, that hopefully will encourage our pupils to be life-long readers.
A typical English lesson at Bullers would start with a retrieval task of previous learning, a piece of challenging reading, discussion, and some individual extended writing in silence( with modelling/scaffolding as required) to end the lesson. We put a high emphasis on high quality discussion and questioning for many reasons including: its importance for learning and the preparation for writing.
We teach the AQA specification for English Language GCSE , English Literature GCSE and GCSE Media Studies.
Curriculum Overview Map
English Curriculum Pathway (1).pptx2021-SECONDARY-PACK.pdfSuperstars - Autumn Term
Every term, staff nominate students who go above and beyond in lessons. Please view the superstars work below.
Recommended reading list
The full list of CILIP Carnegie Medal Winners are listed below. These are all books aimed at young people. The prize is held every year. All of the books are highly recommended.
2019 Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X, Electric Monkey
2018 Geraldine McCaughrean, Where the World Ends, Usborne 2017 Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea, Puffin
2016 Sarah Crossan, One, Bloomsbury
2015 Tanya Landman, Buffalo Soldier, Walker Books
2014 Kevin Brooks, The Bunker Diary, Puffin Books
2013 Sally Gardner, Maggot Moon, Hot Key Books
2012 Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls, Walker Books
2011 Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men, Walker Books
2010 Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book, Bloomsbury
2009 Siobhan Dowd, Bog Child, David Fickling Books
2008 Philip Reeve, Here Lies Arthur, Scholastic
2007 Meg Rosoff, Just in Case, Penguin
2005 Mal Peet, Tamar, Walker Books
2004 Frank Cottrell Boyce, Millions, Macmillan
2003 Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light, Bloomsbury Children’s Books 2002 Sharon Creech, Ruby Holler, Bloomsbury Children’s Books 2001 Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Doubleday 2000 Beverly Naidoo, The Other Side of Truth, Puffin
1999 Aidan Chambers, Postcards from No Man’s Land, Bodley Head 1998 David Almond, Skellig, Hodder Children’s Books
1997 Tim Bowler, River Boy, OUP
1996 Melvin Burgess, Junk, Anderson Press
1995 Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials: Book 1 Northern Lights, Scholastic 1994 Theresa Breslin, Whispers in the Graveyard, Methuen
1993 Robert Swindells, Stone Cold, H Hamilton
1992 Anne Fine, Flour Babies, H Hamilton
1991 Berlie Doherty, Dear Nobody, H Hamilton
1990 Gillian Cross, Wolf, OUP
1989 Anne Fine, Goggle-eyes, H Hamilton
1988 Geraldine McCaughrean, A Pack of Lies, OUP
1987 Susan Price, The Ghost Drum, Faber
1986 Berlie Doherty, Granny was a Buffer Girl, Methuen 1985 Kevin Crossley-Holland, Storm, Heinemann
1984 Margaret Mahy, The Changeover, Dent
1983 Jan Mark, Handles, Kestrel
1982 Margaret Mahy, The Haunting, Dent
1981 Robert Westall, The Scarecrows, Chatto & Windus
1980 Peter Dickinson, City of Gold, Gollancz
1979 Peter Dickinson, Tulku, Gollancz
1978 David Rees, The Exeter Blitz, Hamish Hamilton
1977 Gene Kemp, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, Faber 1976 Jan Mark, Thunder and Lightnings, Kestrel
1975 Robert Westall, The Machine Gunners, Macmillan
1974 Mollie Hunter, The Stronghold, H Hamilton
1973 Penelope Lively, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, Heinemann 1972 Richard Adams, Watership Down, Rex Collings
1971 Ivan Southall, Josh, Angus & Robertson
1970 Leon Garfield & Edward Blishen, The God Beneath the Sea, Longman 1969 Kathleen Peyton, The Edge of the Cloud, OUP
1968 Rosemary Harris, The Moon in the Cloud, Faber
1967 Alan Garner, The Owl Service, Collins
1965 Philip Turner, The Grange at High Force, OUP
1964 Sheena Porter, Nordy Bank, OUP
1963 Hester Burton, Time of Trial, OUP
1962 Pauline Clarke, The Twelve and the Genii, Faber
1961 Lucy M Boston, A Stranger at Green Knowe, Faber
1960 Dr IW Cornwall, The Making of Man, Phoenix House 1959 Rosemary Sutcliff, The Lantern Bearers, OUP
1958 Philippa Pearce, Tom’s Midnight Garden, OUP
1957 William Mayne, A Grass Rope, OUP
1956 C S Lewis, The Last Battle, Bodley Head
1955 Eleanor Farjeon, The Little Bookroom, OUP
1954 Ronald Welch (aka Ronald Oliver Felton), Knight Crusader, OUP 1953 Edward Osmond, A Valley Grows Up, OUP
1952 Mary Norton, The Borrowers, Dent
1951 Cynthia Harnett, The Woolpack, Methuen
1950 Elfrida Vipont Foulds, The Lark on the Wing, OUP
1949 Agnes Allen, The Story of Your Home, Faber
1948 Richard Armstrong, Sea Change, Dent
1947 Walter De La Mare, Collected Stories for Children, Puffin
1946 Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse, University of London Press 1944 Eric Linklater, The Wind on the Moon, Macmillan
1942 ‘BB’ (D J Watkins-Pitchford), The Little Grey Men, Eyre & Spottiswoode 1941 Mary Treadgold, We Couldn’t Leave Dinah, Cape
1940 Kitty Barne, Visitors from London, Dent
1939 Eleanor Doorly, Radium Woman, Heinemann
1938 Noel Streatfeild, The Circus is Coming, Dent
1937 Eve Garnett, The Family from One End Street, Muller
1936 Arthur Ransome, Pigeon Post, Cape
Some recommended non-fiction…
100 Things To Know About History
100 Things To Know About Geography
100 Things To Know About Science
100 Things To Know About Space
100 Things To Know About Planet Earth
100 Things To Know About Numbers, Computers and Coding
100 Things To Know About Food
100 Things To Know About the Human Body
All of the above are excellent for acquiring interesting general knowledge that will help with reading comprehension in all subjects. They are all published by Usborne.
The list below contains wonderful books we think ambitious year 8-9 students will enjoy: they are books that open doors onto the world of literature. The list includes novels, short stories, and some poetry, too. The works listed were written mostly between the seventeenth century and the twenty-first (although there is one work from the eighth century!) Enjoy reading!
1. Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
2. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun
3. W.H. Auden, Selected Poems
4. Jane Austen, Emma
5. Murray Bail, Eucalyptus
6. Beowulf(writer unknown-Anglo Saxon Epic poem)
7. Raymond Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
8. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
9. A.S. Byatt, Possession
10. Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller
11. Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda Michael Chabon,
12. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
13. Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
14. S. T. Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner
15. John Donne, Songs and Sonnets
16. George Gissing, The Nether World
17. Günter Grass, The Tin Drum
18. Albert Camus, L’Etranger (The Stranger)
19. Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations 20. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
21. Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
22. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
23. Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career
24. Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World
25. Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
26. Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbevilles 27. Jaroslav Hašek, The Adventures Of The Good Soldier Švejk 28. John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
29. M.R. James, Collected Ghost Stories
30. Tove Jansson, The Summer Book
31. John Keats, Odes
32. Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party and Other Stories 33. Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude 34. Toni Morrison, Beloved
35. Alice Munro, New Selected Stories
36. Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials Trilogy
37. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
38. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front 39. Dorothy L Sayers, Murder Must Advertise
40. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus 41. Zadie Smith, White Teeth
42. Art Spiegelman, Maus
43. John Steinbeck, East of Eden
44. Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde
45. Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
46. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ‘The Passing of Arthur’ from Idylls of the King 47. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
48. Voltaire, Candide
49. Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall
50. Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit 51. Virginia Woolf, Orlando and To the Lighthouse 52. William Wordsworth, The Lyrical Ballads 53. Markus Zusak, The Book Thief B
54. The Outsiders, SE Hinton
55. The Diary Of A Young Girl, Anne Frank
56. Figures In A Landscape, Barry England
How can I support my son with reading?
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