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DITCHAM PARK SCHOOL |
| Where every child is known and valued |
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Open Morning Saturday 2nd October 10am-1pm
'Words are like leaves and where they most abound
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.'
Well, let's hope Alexander Pope's words don't apply here. You certainly won't find much more than words -- they remain the staple diet of the department.
English is rightly thought to be one of the seminal school subjects -- a 'core' subject in National Curriculum terminology -- since as a major means of communication it has so many cross curricular applications in school, as well as being an essential written and spoken tool in the world beyond school. Pupils must be constantly urged of the value of clear, coherent, well-expressed thinking and writing and speaking. Integration of speaking and listening and writing and reading is the ideal to be aimed at. A Physics experiment or a History essay will alike benefit from intelligent planning, controlled and accurate writing and a structured layout. The ability to express yourself clearly and confidently is a major asset in social and occupational life beyond school. English teachers need to be aware of these ramifications.
Within the English 'Laager', it is the aim of the department to prepare all pupils of the school for the OCR GCSE in two subjects, English and English Literature (1900 and 1901). In the last 20 years every pupil has taken both subjects, and this is a trend that should be maintained. Standards are consistently high, with A being the commonest grade awarded in the 1232 entries in the two subjects. However, some of the best individual achievements are from pupils who achieved C when their early language difficulties made this seem profoundly unlikely.
The pupils, judging from the evidence of past years, can be expected to have a fair spread of ability, and it is the department's ideal to help every student to improve his/her skills in reading, writing and spoken English. One teaches a class, yes, but more importantly one teaches the eighteen or so individuals within the class, and it is our responsibility to help them as individuals. Pupils with dyslexic tendencies have special problems and English teachers must be extremely sensitive to these, especially as such problems affect confidence and achievement in so many academic subjects, and, as importantly, affects an individual's self-esteem.
The department will:
- Liaise closely with pupils undergoing extra tuition with the Learning Support department;
- Liaise closely with staff giving such tuition;
- Help identify pupils with such problems, inform Learning Support colleagues, and support the work they are doing;
- Be sympathetic and supportive to individual pupils feeling understandable stress at the frustrating nature of their difficulties.
English is allocated five periods a week (35 minutes per period) for each of the five years to GCSE, (it is worth, however, reminding pupils that virtually every lesson is an English lesson whether it is formally English or not!). There need be no division between English and English Literature lessons. Thus, from day one in the first year pupils should be exposed to a widening range of literary texts -- poems, plays, short stories, novels etc -- but the study, for example of James Vance Marshall's 'Walkabout', Jack London's 'The Call of the Wild' or George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' can be used not only to widen the pupil's imaginative and critical response to literature, but also to teach how to organise ideas, articulate experience, widen and stretch vocabulary, to see how the language works, and how basic grammar, spelling and punctuation clarifies, defines and often IS meaning.
Contact Information:
Telephone 01730-825659 Postal Address Ditcham Park School, Ditcham Park, Nr Petersfield, Hants, GU31 5RN, England