English & Media

English Curriculum Overview

English is central to empowering our students. Through reading, writing, and critical thinking, learners develop the confidence and analytical skills they need to thrive across the curriculum. Our programme builds the essential knowledge required for success at Key Stage 4 (KS4), fully aligned with the 1–9 grading system and delivered in an engaging, challenging way.

Year 7: Foundations in Literature and Language

Students explore a broad introduction to literary study, historical contexts, and core writing skills.

Key learning includes:

• Victorian Literature & Context: Life in Victorian London, crime and society, the structure of a novel, and key characters such as Bill Sikes, Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Oliver Twist. Themes include morality, villains and victims, vulnerability, corruption, and innocence.

• Grammar & Writing Skills: Topic sentences, subjects and verbs, subject–verb agreement, and the past simple tense.

• Elizabethan & Classical Worlds: Life in Elizabethan England and ancient Athens, Shakespeare’s life, the four lovers, the love potion, family relationships, and the structure of a play.

• Analytical Skills: Using evidence effectively, avoiding pronoun ambiguity, understanding prepositional phrases, correcting run‑on sentences, and punctuating speech.

• Key Vocabulary: Soliloquy, severe, conflict, unrequited love, mock, chaos.

• Poetry & Figurative Language: Metaphor, literal vs. metaphorical language, tenor, vehicle, ground; poetic forms; study of The Tyger, The Eagle, and poets such as Blake, Tennyson, and Phoebe Hesketh.

• Extended Writing: Approaching unseen texts, using temporal clauses, effective paragraphing, avoiding fragments, and crafting extended narratives.

Year 8: Developing Analytical and Creative Skills

Students deepen their understanding of how writers use language and structure to shape meaning.

Key learning includes:

• Commenting on language at word, sentence, and paragraph level.

• Exploring similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia, and word classes.

• Using discourse markers, constructing arguments, describing settings, and using extended metaphor.

• Applying techniques studied in reading to their own writing.

• Responding to poetry through language, structure, and personal interpretation.

• Analysing drama through themes, structure, and stagecraft.

Poetry focus: lines, stanzas, rhythm, metre, iambic pentameter
Drama focus: stage directions and performative elements

Year 9: Strengthening Critical Thinking and Comparative Skills

Students prepare for the demands of GCSE by analysing texts at a deeper level.

Key learning includes:

• Commenting on writer’s craft at micro (word/sentence) and macro (whole‑text) levels, including writer’s perspective.

• Understanding structural techniques such as juxtaposition, cyclical narratives, and symbolism.

• Using apostrophes accurately and sustaining a clear thesis in writing.

• Mastering punctuation rules.

• Comparing poetry

Years 10 & 11: Mastery and GCSE Preparation

Students refine their skills and apply them confidently in preparation for GCSE examinations.

Key learning includes:

• Producing extended, well‑structured pieces of writing.

• Responding effectively to timed exam questions.

• Analysing language and structure in both fiction and non‑fiction texts.

• Selecting key information from texts.

• Comparing non‑fiction texts and poems.

• Writing in a range of text types with accuracy and purpose.

• Building on the strong foundations established throughout KS3.

Please see below Y10 Summer work:

Y10 Summer Homework Challenge

/Y10 Summer Homework Booklet

Useful links:

You can view more details of our English curriculum and a curriculum map outlining key texts for Y10 and Y11 here.  

KS4 English Exam Board is AQA and the specification is here for English Language and English Literature.

Media studies

Media studies at PACA in KS4 follows the OCR syllabus.  During this course of study, students analyse a range of media products, take part in interactive workshops and complete controlled assessments that which are linked to industry briefs.

Media students at PACA have access to a range of video recording and editing equipment, digital cameras and have access to Adobe Photoshop and other industry standard applications.

The course has 3 main areas of learning and assessment, which are detailed below: 

Part1: Visual identity and digital graphics - Assessed via Coursework assignment in Year 10 

This is all about being able to develop a brand identity, and develops skills such as making logos, graphic design, typography, and colour theory. You will learn how to target an audience, how to make a unique brand identity, and then put your knowledge and skills into practice with a coursework assignment. 

Part 2: Visual Imaging (Film & Photography) - Assessed via coursework assignment in Year 11 
This is a unit where you will develop knowledge and skills in the production of digital images and film. It is assessed with a coursework assignment. Students respond to a professional client brief and learn how to plan, shoot and edit images for a client. 

Part 3: Media knowledge and understanding - Assessed via exam in May/June of Year 11 

In this unit you will learn about the media industry, digital media products, how they are planned, and the media codes which are used to convey meaning, create impact and engage audiences. This is the ‘theory’ behind everything else that you will learn, so this unit spans years 10 and 11. It is assessed with a 90 minute written exam at the end of year 11. 

You can read more about the Media course in our curriculum intent and curriculum map here. 

The KS4 Media Exam Board is OCR and the Specification is here.