In Year 7, students begin an exciting journey through stories, poetry, plays, and speeches that have shaped human thought and imagination across cultures and centuries.
Over the course of the year, pupils read a rich variety of texts: from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Dickens’ Oliver Twist, to short stories like The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, poetry from Rumi and Ruyard Kipling, and historic speeches from leaders including Mandela, Gandhi, and Churchill. Alongside this, we explore timeless moral lessons through Aesop’s Fables and Al-Ghazali’s Children’s Reader.
Students are taught not only to enjoy these works but to analyse them thoughtfully, write with clarity and sophistication, and speak with confidence. Through performance, debate, essay writing, and creative expression, they learn how words shape both hearts and history.
Throughout the year, students also develop the core skills of vocabulary growth, spelling, grammar, accurate expression, and structured essay writing. These build strong foundations while also encouraging independence, curiosity, and critical thinking.
Themes by Term
- Autumn Term: Why do humans tell stories?
- Exploring fables, short stories, and Dickens.
- Foundations of narrative: plot, setting, character, theme.
- Introduction to essay writing and PEE/PEEL structure.
- Spring Term: How do stories shape who we are?
- Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
- Themes of love, folly, and imagination.
- Comparative study
- Building analytical essays and research skills.
- Summer Term: Can words change people’s hearts? Do stories and speeches make history or just reflect it?
- Poetry across cultures
- Rhetoric and speeches
- Debates, performance, persuasive writing.
How We Meet and Extend Standards
- National Curriculum Alignment:
- Reading: Wide range of fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction studied; emphasis on inference, analysis, comparison, and context.
- Writing: Narrative, analytical, and persuasive writing practised regularly; drafting, editing, and accuracy taught explicitly.
- Grammar & Vocabulary: Weekly SPaG drills and vocabulary building; focus on morphology, etymology, and syntax.
- Speaking & Listening: Debate, performance, and presentation integrated into every term.
- Beyond the Standards:
- Comparative reading across cultures and traditions.
- Exploration of moral and ethical questions alongside literature.
- Development of research, critical thinking, and reasoning skills.
Cost: £1100 per year, payable in 10 monthly instalments of £110.00.
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