English — Disciplinary Progression

Students are new to literary study. The emphasis is on building foundations: learning to read with attention, recognising that texts are deliberately crafted, and developing the basic tools of analysis. Everything is heavily modelled and scaffolded — the goal is to establish secure habits of reading, writing, and thinking that all future learning will build on.

1

Reading for Understanding

Read aloud with accuracy and developing fluency. Follow the narrative of texts at a literal level: identify what happens, to whom, and in what order. Use reciprocal reading strategies (predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarising) to navigate complex or unfamiliar texts. Where texts present significant linguistic challenge — such as Shakespearean syntax or archaic diction — students are supported through explicit modelling, guided reading, glossaries, and structured discussion.

The skills of understanding remain consistent across the years; what changes is both the breadth of challenge encountered and the level of support provided. A Year 7 student encountering Shakespeare receives comprehensive scaffolding; by A-Level, they navigate comparable complexity independently.

For example: When reading a play like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a student might follow the interweaving plotlines — the lovers, the mechanicals, the fairy court — using glossaries and guided reading to navigate Shakespeare’s syntax.

Coming from KS2

At primary school, most students have largely automated word recognition. But the upper strands of language comprehension — vocabulary, context, literary convention — continue to develop throughout secondary school. Students may encounter complex or archaic texts for the first time.

Preparing for Year 8

In Year 8, students will read longer, more complex texts with multiple strands and begin navigating allegory, satire, and extended metaphor — requiring them to hold multiple threads simultaneously.

2

Reading for Meaning

Begin to make inferences — reading between the lines to understand what is implied but not stated. Understand that texts have a purpose and are shaped by choices. Begin to recognise that a text can operate on more than one level: for instance, a fantasy narrative may also be a story about identity or growing up. Understand that metaphor carries meaning — that the tenor, vehicle, and ground work together.

Kispal’s NFER review (2008) found that inference is the single most important component of reading comprehension beyond decoding, and that many students struggle because they are not explicitly taught how to infer.

For example: A student reading Coraline might infer that the ‘other world’ is not simply a fantasy setting but represents something deeper about appreciating your real life — recognising the story operates on more than one level.

Coming from KS2

Primary students can often make basic inferences but tend not to recognise that texts operate on multiple levels simultaneously. The idea that a story can mean more than its surface narrative is often new territory.

Preparing for Year 8

In Year 8, students will move beyond individual inferences to synthesis — pulling together meaning from across a whole text, tracking how ideas and themes develop, and recognising how mood and tone shift.

3

Analytical Reading

Identify basic literary methods: metaphor (tenor, vehicle, ground), simile, personification, pathetic fallacy. Begin to explain what these methods do — what effect they create — rather than simply naming them. Understand the difference between denotation and connotation. Begin to notice how texts are structured: narrative arc, the conventions of poetry versus prose versus drama.

At this stage, the emphasis is on recognition and explanation. Naming a metaphor is a prerequisite for analysing one — the schema must be built before complex operations can be performed on it.

For example: A student studying a poem might identify how the poet uses personification or pathetic fallacy to create atmosphere, and begin to explain what effect the method creates rather than simply naming it.

Coming from KS2

Primary students may recognise some basic literary devices (simile, alliteration) but rarely explain what they do. The shift from naming to analysing effect is a fundamental move in English at secondary level.

Preparing for Year 8

In Year 8, students will move from identifying individual methods to tracking how methods work together across a text: recurring motifs, developing symbols, and structural patterns. Analysis at sentence level as well as word level.

4

Writer’s Purpose and Context

Understand that writers make choices for reasons — that narrative structures, character types, settings, and imagery are deliberate. Begin to understand why writers create: how myths served cultural purposes, how Shakespeare wrote for a specific theatre and patron, or how a modern author draws on the Gothic tradition. Context is introduced through the writer’s lens.

For example: A student might explore why myths were told — how ancient stories served cultural purposes — and consider why Neil Gaiman draws on Gothic and fairy-tale traditions in Coraline to explore a child’s fear of losing what matters.

Coming from KS2

Primary students typically encounter texts as self-contained stories without considering the writer’s deliberate choices or the cultural context that shaped them. The idea that a writer’s purpose shapes every element of a text is generally new.

Preparing for Year 8

In Year 8, students will understand how writers use texts as social commentaries — how literature comments on power, identity, and justice — always taught through the writer’s purpose rather than as standalone historical context.

5

Analytical Writing

Write clearly structured paragraphs: topic sentence → evidence → explanation. Learn to embed short quotations within sentences. Begin to use tentative language (‘This suggests…’, ‘This could imply…’). Begin to develop layers of meaning, moving from what a quotation says to what it connotes. Use simple discourse markers to organise ideas.

Heavily modelled and scaffolded writing is appropriate — consistent with CLT’s worked example effect for novices.

For example: A student might write a structured paragraph about how Shakespeare presents the relationship between Titania and Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, embedding a short quotation and explaining what it suggests.

Coming from KS2

Primary students typically write about texts by retelling or giving personal opinions. The structured analytical paragraph — with embedded evidence and tentative analytical language — is a new disciplinary practice.

Preparing for Year 8

In Year 8, students will sustain an analytical argument across multiple paragraphs, begin to develop a thesis, and select evidence purposefully — moving towards interpretation rather than description.

6

Creative and Transactional Writing

Write descriptive and narrative pieces with attention to setting, character, and atmosphere. Focus on accuracy: secure sentence construction (simple, compound, complex), correct punctuation, consistent tense, clear paragraphing. Develop mood-setting through pathetic fallacy and imagery. Begin to make deliberate vocabulary choices.

Flower and Hayes established that novice writers often skip planning and reviewing — instruction should explicitly build the full writing process.

For example: After reading a novel like Coraline, a student might write their own narrative opening that establishes a mysterious atmosphere, focusing on accurate sentence construction and deliberate vocabulary choices.

Coming from KS2

Primary students can write narratives and descriptions but often lack consistency in accuracy and tend towards knowledge-telling rather than deliberate craft. Building secure technical foundations is the priority.

Preparing for Year 8

In Year 8, students will write for different purposes and audiences (persuasive speeches, opinion pieces, identity-based creative writing), developing sentence-level craft and the ability to sustain a voice.

7

Vocabulary and Grammar

Secure knowledge of word classes and basic sentence structures. Build vocabulary through explicit teaching of Tier 2 words encountered in texts. Learn Tier 3 literary terms: metaphor (tenor, ground, vehicle), simile, pathetic fallacy, narrative structure, resolution, climax, denouement, theme, symbolism, exposition. Understand that grammar is about making choices, not just correctness.

For example: Through reading Coraline or studying poetry, a student might learn terms like metaphor, pathetic fallacy, climax, and denouement — understanding them as tools for talking about what writers do.

Coming from KS2

Primary students have encountered word classes and basic grammar but typically as rules of correctness rather than as a repertoire of choices. The reframing of grammar as a meaning-making resource is a key shift.

Preparing for Year 8

In Year 8, students will expand their Tier 2 vocabulary systematically (the language of argument and analysis) and develop Tier 3 terms for rhetoric, allegory, and dramatic conventions.

The focus shifts from individual elements to whole-text thinking. Students begin tracking patterns and ideas across longer, more complex texts, reading for social commentary, and writing for different purposes and audiences. Analysis moves from word level to sentence level, and scaffolding starts to fade as students apply strategies with growing independence.

1

Reading for Understanding

Read with increasing fluency and stamina across longer, more complex texts. Track plot across texts with multiple strands — subplots, parallel narratives, or dual time-frames. Begin to navigate texts that operate on more than one level, such as allegory, satire, or extended metaphor. Where challenging registers are encountered, support remains explicit but students are increasingly expected to apply strategies independently.

The text challenge increases significantly: students must now hold multiple threads simultaneously and recognise when a text means more than it literally says.

For example: When reading Animal Farm, a student might track the allegorical narrative — following both the surface story of the farm and recognising that each event corresponds to something beyond itself.

Building from Year 7

In Year 7, students followed narratives at a literal level and used reciprocal reading strategies with heavy support. Now they track multiple narrative threads and begin recognising when a text operates on more than one level.

Preparing for Year 9

In Year 9, students will read from a widening range of periods and forms, navigate dramatic and poetic structures, and tolerate ambiguity with significantly less scaffolding.

2

Reading for Meaning

Move beyond individual inferences to synthesis — pulling together meaning from across a whole text. Begin to recognise how mood and tone shift across a text and how writers create these shifts. Track how ideas and themes develop: how a character’s treatment constructs the writer’s commentary, or how an allegory’s transformations embody a political argument.

Rosenblatt’s transactional theory becomes relevant here: students begin to understand that meaning is constructed in the transaction between reader and text.

For example: In The Merchant of Venice, a student might track how Shylock’s treatment across the play — his speeches, the way others speak about him — constructs Shakespeare’s complex commentary on prejudice and justice.

Building from Year 7

In Year 7, students began making inferences and recognising that texts can operate on more than one level. Now they synthesise meaning across whole texts and track how ideas develop.

Preparing for Year 9

In Year 9, students will read for layers of meaning — literal, metaphorical, and thematic simultaneously — and begin to evaluate a writer’s choices rather than simply identifying them.

3

Analytical Reading

Move from identifying individual methods to tracking how methods work together across a text: recurring motifs, developing symbols, structural patterns. Understand how form creates meaning: regular versus irregular verse, dramatic structure, allegory and rhetoric. Analyse at sentence level as well as word level — how rhythm, repetition, and rhetorical structure (ethos, pathos, logos, kairos) contribute to effect.

For example: When reading a persuasive speech, a student might analyse how rhetorical devices — anaphora, tricolon, shifts in tone — work together to build cumulative power, moving from word-level to sentence-level analysis.

Building from Year 7

In Year 7, students identified basic literary methods and began explaining their effects. Now they track how methods work together across a text, and analyse at sentence level as well as word level.

Preparing for Year 9

In Year 9, students will analyse how language, structure, and form work in integrated ways and develop sustained close reading — exploring passages in depth and connecting to the wider text.

4

Writer’s Purpose and Context

Understand how writers use texts as social commentaries — how literature comments on power, identity, marginalisation, and justice. Context is taught through the writer’s purpose: not ‘what was this historical event?’ but ‘why does the writer choose this form, and what does that choice achieve?’ Understand that writers from marginalised communities write from and about their experience.

For example: A student might explore why Orwell chose allegory to comment on political tyranny in Animal Farm — not just ‘what was the Russian Revolution?’ but ‘why does the writer choose this form to tell this story?’

Building from Year 7

In Year 7, students understood that writers make deliberate choices and began to explore why. Now they understand how writers use texts as social commentary and how formal choices carry political meaning.

Preparing for Year 9

In Year 9, students will understand how major literary movements reflect their historical moments — always through the writer — and develop authorial intent as an analytical tool.

5

Analytical Writing

Sustain an analytical argument across multiple paragraphs, with each paragraph advancing the argument. Begin to develop a thesis. Select evidence purposefully. Analyse connotations within quotations, moving towards interpretation. Use discourse markers to signal argument direction. Begin to comment on effect on the audience.

Scaffolding fades for basic paragraph structure but remains for thesis construction.

For example: A student might sustain a multi-paragraph argument about how Shakespeare presents the theme of justice in The Merchant of Venice, developing a thesis and selecting evidence purposefully across the play.

Building from Year 7

In Year 7, students learned to write structured analytical paragraphs with embedded evidence and tentative language. Now they sustain arguments across multiple paragraphs and begin developing a thesis.

Preparing for Year 9

In Year 9, students will construct extended analytical essays (3+ paragraphs) sustaining a clear thesis, deploy evidence with precision, and consider alternative interpretations.

6

Creative and Transactional Writing

Write for different purposes and audiences: persuasive speeches, opinion pieces, identity-based creative writing. Understand the conventions of rhetorical writing: deliberate deployment of ethos, pathos, and logos. In creative writing, develop the ability to sustain a voice. Focus on sentence-level craft: varying sentence length and structure for deliberate effect.

The connection between reading rhetoric and writing it is crucial — students who have analysed the sentence structures of great speeches are better equipped to deploy similar techniques.

For example: After reading identity poems from the Windrush or diaspora tradition, a student might write their own persuasive speech on belonging, deploying ethos, pathos, and logos with growing awareness.

Building from Year 7

In Year 7, students focused on descriptive and narrative writing with an emphasis on accuracy and deliberate vocabulary. Now they write for different purposes and audiences, and develop sentence-level craft for deliberate effect.

Preparing for Year 9

In Year 9, students will write narratives with conscious control of structure (openings, pace shifts, endings) and construct sustained arguments from multiple perspectives with increasing independence.

7

Vocabulary and Grammar

Expand Tier 2 vocabulary systematically, particularly the language of argument and analysis: suggests, implies, juxtaposes, undermines, reinforces. Develop Tier 3 terms: soliloquy, dramatic irony, allegory, symbolism, rhetoric, ethos, pathos, logos, kairos, anaphora, cyclical structure. Understand sentence structures with greater precision.

For example: Through texts like Animal Farm and persuasive speeches, a student might learn terms like allegory, rhetoric, ethos, pathos, logos, and dramatic irony — building the language of argument and analysis.

Building from Year 7

In Year 7, students secured word classes, basic sentence structures, and foundational literary terms. Now they expand systematically into the language of argument, analysis, and rhetoric.

Preparing for Year 9

In Year 9, students will consolidate and extend the analytical and literary vocabulary built across KS3, commanding terms for the literary traditions and forms they encounter.

A pivotal year. Students read from a wider range of periods and forms, develop sustained close reading, and begin constructing extended analytical essays with a clear thesis. The emphasis is on integration — language, structure, and form analysed together — and on developing authorial intent as an analytical tool. Independence grows significantly.

1

Reading for Understanding

Read texts from a widening range of periods and forms with developing confidence, including pre-20th century literature where syntax, vocabulary, and conventions may be significantly unfamiliar. Sustain reading of longer texts and understand how dramatic and narrative structure shapes the reading experience. Navigate the conventions of literary periods and movements. Support is increasingly withdrawn: students are expected to tolerate ambiguity while working towards understanding.

The breadth and challenge of texts encountered widens substantially. Students may now be reading pre-19th century poetry with inverted syntax alongside modern prose and drama — with less explicit scaffolding than in earlier years.

For example: When reading Romantic poetry — Shelley’s inverted syntax, Blake’s symbolic vocabulary — a student might draw on strategies built in earlier years to navigate unfamiliar forms with less scaffolding, tolerating ambiguity while working towards understanding.

Building from Year 8

In Year 8, students tracked multiple narrative strands and began navigating allegory and satire. Now they read from a wider range of periods with less support, tolerating ambiguity and drawing on strategies built in earlier years.

Preparing for Year 10

In Year 10, students will read whole set texts with increasing independence, navigating complex imagery, ambiguity, and shifts between registers without routine scaffolding.

2

Reading for Meaning

Read for layers of meaning — understanding that a text operates simultaneously on literal, metaphorical, and thematic levels. Track the development of ideas, characters, and themes across whole texts. Begin to evaluate a writer’s choices: not just ‘what effect does this create?’ but ‘how successful is this, and what does it achieve?’

For example: In A View from the Bridge, a student might track how Eddie Carbone’s language shifts as the play progresses and evaluate how Miller uses his descent to comment on justice and masculinity.

Building from Year 8

In Year 8, students synthesised meaning across whole texts and tracked how ideas develop. Now they read for multiple layers of meaning simultaneously and begin to evaluate rather than just identify a writer’s choices.

Preparing for Year 10

In Year 10, students will move from understanding what a writer is saying to evaluating how effectively they say it and why their choices matter — reading for the writer’s social commentary and how texts position the reader.

3

Analytical Reading

Analyse how language, structure, and form work in integrated ways — a poem’s metre is not separate from its imagery; a play’s structure is not separate from its themes. Develop sustained close reading: exploring a passage in depth, attending to word choice, syntax, imagery, and rhythm, and connecting these to the wider text.

For example: When reading a Shakespeare sonnet, a student might analyse how metre, imagery, and the volta work together as an integrated whole — the form is not separate from the meaning but part of it.

Building from Year 8

In Year 8, students tracked how methods work together across texts and analysed at both word and sentence level. Now they integrate language, structure, and form analysis and develop sustained close reading.

Preparing for Year 10

In Year 10, students will analyse at word, sentence, and text level in an integrated way, tracking motifs and symbolism across whole texts and comparing how different poets present similar themes.

4

Writer’s Purpose and Context

Understand how major literary movements and traditions reflect and respond to their historical moments — but always through the writer. Develop authorial intent as an analytical tool: moving from ‘the writer uses…’ to ‘the writer perhaps intends…’ Understand that biography and political context shape but do not determine meaning.

For example: A student might explore why the Romantic poets wrote about the natural world as they did — how Shelley’s political radicalism or Blake’s religious vision shaped their formal choices — developing authorial intent as an analytical tool.

Building from Year 8

In Year 8, students understood how writers use texts as social commentaries and how formal choices carry political meaning. Now they understand literary movements and develop authorial intent as an analytical tool.

Preparing for Year 10

In Year 10, students will use context to deepen rather than replace analysis, understanding how a writer’s political or moral convictions shape structural and characterial choices.

5

Analytical Writing

Construct extended analytical essays (3+ paragraphs) sustaining a clear thesis. Develop thesis statements that frame an argument. Deploy evidence with precision — short, well-chosen quotations analysed closely. Consider alternative interpretations: ‘Alternatively, it could be argued that…’ Write with increasing sophistication, using tentative and evaluative language naturally.

By Year 9, students should be moving beyond PEE structures towards more fluid, integrated analytical prose.

For example: A student might construct an extended essay on Romeo and Juliet with a clear thesis — such as ‘Shakespeare presents the central relationship as both transcendent and destructive’ — deploying precise evidence and considering alternatives.

Building from Year 8

In Year 8, students sustained arguments across multiple paragraphs and began developing a thesis. Now they construct extended essays with clear thesis statements, precise evidence, and alternative interpretations.

Preparing for Year 10

In Year 10, students will write sustained multi-paragraph analytical essays maintaining a clear thesis, deploying evidence with precision, and reaching a supported overall judgement with a developing critical voice.

6

Creative and Transactional Writing

Write narratives with conscious control of structure: openings that hook, shifts in pace, endings that resonate. Set and shift mood. In transactional writing, construct sustained arguments from multiple perspectives, using rhetoric with increasing confidence. Practise both with increasing independence.

Bereiter and Scardamalia’s distinction is relevant: push from knowledge-telling towards knowledge-transforming.

For example: A student might write a narrative with conscious control of structure — an opening that hooks, shifts in pace, and an ending that resonates — or construct a sustained argument from multiple perspectives.

Building from Year 8

In Year 8, students wrote for different purposes and audiences, developed rhetorical writing skills, and focused on sentence-level craft. Now they write with conscious structural control and increasing independence.

Preparing for Year 10

In Year 10, students will produce narratives with conscious control of technical accuracy, develop a distinctive written voice, and produce transactional writing with rhetorical sophistication under timed conditions.

7

Vocabulary and Grammar

Consolidate and extend the analytical and literary vocabulary built across KS3. Students should command terms relating to the literary traditions and forms they encounter — including sonnet, iambic pentameter, tragic flaw, foreshadowing, literary foil, semantic field, dramatic monologue, sublime, stagecraft. Understand how writers manipulate syntax for effect.

For example: Through reading Romantic poetry and drama, a student might consolidate terms like sonnet, iambic pentameter, tragic flaw, and dramatic monologue, and begin manipulating syntax for effect in their own writing.

Building from Year 8

In Year 8, students expanded their Tier 2 vocabulary (argument and analysis) and Tier 3 terms (rhetoric, allegory, dramatic conventions). Now they consolidate this foundation and extend into literary traditions and forms.

Preparing for Year 10

In Year 10, students will command a broad analytical vocabulary and deploy varied sentence structures and punctuation as tools of craft, with analytical verbs foregrounding writer’s purpose.

GCSE study begins in earnest. Students read set texts and unseen material with increasing independence, evaluate how effectively writers create meaning, and write sustained analytical essays with a developing critical voice. Context deepens analysis rather than replacing it, and writing under timed conditions becomes a regular expectation.

1

Reading for Understanding

Read whole set texts with increasing independence, applying comprehension strategies without routine scaffolding. Navigate the full linguistic challenge of texts from different periods — including complex imagery, ambiguity, equivocation, and shifts between registers. Read unseen texts applying KS3 strategies to unfamiliar material with confidence. At this stage, support for basic comprehension should rarely be needed.

Ofsted’s Telling the Story (2024) emphasised that schools should design reading curricula fostering fluency and linguistic knowledge, avoiding limitation to exam-style questions.

For example: When reading Macbeth, a student might navigate shifts between verse and prose, soliloquy and dialogue, and the linguistic density of Shakespeare’s imagery — applying strategies independently without routine scaffolding.

Building from Year 9

In Year 9, students read from a widening range of periods with less scaffolding and tolerated ambiguity. Now they read whole set texts with increasing independence and navigate unseen texts confidently.

Preparing for Year 11

In Year 11, students will re-read studied texts with deeper understanding, navigate 19th-century and earlier prose with confidence, and comprehend under timed conditions with minimal scaffolding.

2

Reading for Meaning

Move from understanding what a writer is saying to evaluating how effectively they say it and why their choices matter. Read for the writer’s social commentary. Understand how texts position the reader — what assumptions they make, what responses they invite. Read unseen poetry for literal and figurative meaning at word, sentence, and text level.

For example: In An Inspector Calls, a student might evaluate Priestley’s didactic purpose — how he positions the audience to judge the Birlings — and understand how the play’s structure makes a social argument, not just tells a story.

Building from Year 9

In Year 9, students read for layers of meaning and began evaluating a writer’s choices. Now they evaluate how effectively writers create meaning and understand how texts position readers.

Preparing for Year 11

In Year 11, students will develop genuinely layered reading — multiple connotations, structural irony, thematic resonance — and move beyond describing what writers do to evaluating how effectively and why it matters.

3

Analytical Reading

Analyse texts at word, sentence, and text level in an integrated way. Develop precision of close reading: connotations of specific word choices, effects of syntactic patterns, significance of structural decisions. Track motifs, imagery, and symbolism across whole texts. Compare how different poets present similar themes, sustaining comparison across extended writing.

For example: When comparing poems from a conflict anthology, a student might track how different poets use imagery, structure, and form to present conflict — sustaining comparison at word, sentence, and text level.

Building from Year 9

In Year 9, students analysed language, structure, and form in integrated ways and developed sustained close reading. Now they apply this with precision across whole texts and in comparison between texts.

Preparing for Year 11

In Year 11, students will produce close reading that integrates word-level, sentence-level, and text-level analysis, and develop perceptive connotative analysis across a range of periods.

4

Writer’s Purpose and Context

Use context to deepen rather than replace textual analysis. Understand how a writer’s political or moral convictions shape structural and characterial choices. In poetry, understand how each poet’s specific position and experience shapes their formal choices. Develop analytical verbs that foreground purpose: the writer criticises, lampoons, advocates, highlights, subverts.

For example: A student might explore how Priestley’s socialist convictions shape every choice in An Inspector Calls — from the Inspector as catalyst to the cyclical ending — using context to deepen analysis rather than replace it.

Building from Year 9

In Year 9, students understood literary movements and developed authorial intent as an analytical tool. Now they use context to deepen analysis and understand how a writer’s convictions shape every choice.

Preparing for Year 11

In Year 11, students will use contextual knowledge with discrimination, deploying it to illuminate specific moments rather than as generic introduction — context always in service of understanding the writer’s craft.

5

Analytical Writing

Write sustained, multi-paragraph analytical essays maintaining a clear thesis, deploying evidence with precision, and reaching a supported overall judgement. Analyse quotations closely — exploring layers of meaning within individual words and phrases. Develop a critical voice: confident, reasoned claims that go beyond description.

The GCSE distinction between ‘thoughtful’ and ‘perceptive’ often hinges on whether responses embrace complexity or explain it away.

For example: A student might write a sustained essay on Macbeth with a clear thesis about how Shakespeare presents ambition, deploying precise quotations analysed closely and reaching a supported overall judgement.

Building from Year 9

In Year 9, students constructed extended essays with thesis statements, precise evidence, and alternative interpretations. Now they write sustained essays with a developing critical voice and supported overall judgements.

Preparing for Year 11

In Year 11, students will produce polished, exam-ready essays with control of argument, precision of evidence, and depth of analysis — including strong Language Paper responses.

6

Creative and Transactional Writing

Produce narratives with conscious control of technical accuracy, vocabulary, sentence variety, and structure. Develop a distinctive written voice. Produce transactional writing with rhetorical sophistication: deploying ethos, pathos, logos with audience awareness, using tone shifts for effect. Write under timed conditions with increasing fluency.

Ofsted (2024) criticised ‘excessive practice of a narrow range of writing structures to prepare for GCSE’ — students need to write in forms beyond those tested.

For example: A student might produce a persuasive piece with rhetorical sophistication — deploying ethos, pathos, and logos with audience awareness — or write a narrative with a distinctive voice under timed conditions.

Building from Year 9

In Year 9, students wrote with conscious structural control and increasing independence. Now they produce narratives with technical sophistication and transactional writing with rhetorical control under timed conditions.

Preparing for Year 11

In Year 11, students will demonstrate genuine control and craft: precise vocabulary, purposeful sentence structures, confident manipulation of narrative perspective and voice.

7

Vocabulary and Grammar

Command a broad analytical vocabulary: juxtaposition, semantic field, enjambment, caesura, dramatic irony, microcosm, ambiguity, didactic, polemic, allegory, motif, catharsis, hubris. Analytical verbs for writer’s purpose: criticise, lampoon, highlight, exemplify, subvert. Deploy varied sentence structures as tools of craft.

For example: Through a text like Macbeth, a student might command terms like juxtaposition, microcosm, hubris, and catharsis, and deploy analytical verbs — subverts, lampoons, highlights — that foreground writer’s purpose.

Building from Year 9

In Year 9, students consolidated literary vocabulary and understood how writers manipulate syntax for effect. Now they command a broad analytical vocabulary and deploy purposeful analytical verbs.

Preparing for Year 11

In Year 11, students will command a rich, precise vocabulary across analytical and creative writing, with grammatical knowledge used as an automatic resource for thinking and writing.

The focus is on depth, precision, and polish. Students re-read studied texts with richer understanding, produce layered close reading, and write exam-ready essays with control of argument and genuine craft. Vocabulary and grammar are largely internalised. The challenge is qualitative: embracing ambiguity, developing a distinctive critical voice, and demonstrating genuine insight.

1

Reading for Understanding

Re-read studied texts with deeper understanding, noticing connections invisible on first reading. Read texts from the 19th century and earlier with confidence. Read unseen fiction and non-fiction under timed conditions with sustained fluency. Comprehension scaffolding is minimal: students self-monitor understanding and deploy strategies independently.

The challenge of understanding older prose — its length, its embedded clauses, its tonal complexity — is qualitatively different from understanding modern fiction. The skill is the same; the text demands more and the support is largely withdrawn.

For example: When reading A Christmas Carol, a student might navigate Dickens’s 19th-century prose — its embedded clauses, authorial intrusion, and tonal shifts between satire and sentimentality — with confidence and minimal scaffolding.

Building from Year 10

In Year 10, students read whole set texts independently and navigated unseen texts confidently. Now they re-read with deeper understanding, handle 19th-century prose with confidence, and self-monitor comprehension.

Preparing for Year 12

In Year 12, students will read complex literary texts with full independence, moving fluently between radically different periods, traditions, and registers without requiring explicit support.

2

Reading for Meaning

Develop genuinely layered reading: exploring multiple connotations of individual word choices, understanding how a single image carries several meanings simultaneously. Track motifs and symbols across whole texts. Move beyond ‘what the writer does’ to evaluating ‘how effectively and why it matters.’ Understand that the most compelling readings embrace ambiguity.

For example: Re-reading Macbeth, a student might develop genuinely layered reading — how a single image like ‘blood’ carries connotations of guilt, violence, and power simultaneously, and how these shift across the play.

Building from Year 10

In Year 10, students evaluated how effectively writers create meaning and understood how texts position readers. Now they develop genuinely layered reading and embrace ambiguity rather than resolving it artificially.

Preparing for Year 12

In Year 12, students will understand that literary texts operate on multiple levels simultaneously and learn to read against the grain — identifying what a text assumes, excludes, or reveals about its values.

3

Analytical Reading

Produce close reading that integrates word-level, sentence-level, and text-level analysis. Read and interpret language from a range of periods with precision, including older prose and poetry. Develop perceptive connotative analysis: not just what a word suggests but how its connotations interact with other choices across the text.

For example: When analysing A Christmas Carol, a student might produce close reading that integrates word-level choices (Dickens’s adjectives for Scrooge), sentence-level patterns (the listing, the exclamatory syntax), and the text-level arc of moral transformation.

Building from Year 10

In Year 10, students analysed with precision across whole texts and in comparison between texts. Now they produce integrated close reading across multiple levels and develop perceptive connotative analysis.

Preparing for Year 12

In Year 12, students will produce sustained, detailed close reading integrating language, form, and structure, analysing genre conventions and comparing writers across different periods.

4

Writer’s Purpose and Context

Use contextual knowledge with discrimination — deploying it to illuminate specific moments rather than as generic introduction. Understand writers as purposeful agents: how a writer’s personal experience, political convictions, or moral vision shapes every choice. Context is always in service of understanding the writer’s craft and purpose.

For example: A student might use Dickens’s personal experience and political convictions to illuminate specific moments in A Christmas Carol — not as generic introduction but to explain why he crafts Scrooge’s transformation in a particular way.

Building from Year 10

In Year 10, students used context to deepen analysis and understood how convictions shape choices. Now they use contextual knowledge with discrimination, deploying it to illuminate specific moments.

Preparing for Year 12

In Year 12, students will engage with literary and critical context — the traditions within which texts operate — and begin to encounter formal critical perspectives as lenses that illuminate different aspects of a text.

5

Analytical Writing

Produce polished, exam-ready essays demonstrating control of argument, precision of evidence, and depth of analysis. Write with a distinctive critical voice. Craft openings that establish a thesis and closings that offer genuine evaluation. Produce strong Language Paper responses: creative writing that demonstrates genuine craft, and analytical writing that reads unseen texts with sophistication.

For example: A student might produce a polished essay on An Inspector Calls with a thesis about Priestley’s social message, precise evidence, and a closing that offers genuine evaluation rather than summary.

Building from Year 10

In Year 10, students wrote sustained analytical essays with a developing critical voice. Now they produce polished essays with control of argument, precision, and depth — including strong Language Paper responses.

Preparing for Year 12

In Year 12, students will write extended analytical essays (1,000+ words) sustaining a thesis across multiple paragraphs and beginning to integrate critical perspectives as genuine interlocutors.

6

Creative and Transactional Writing

Demonstrate genuine control and craft: precise vocabulary, purposeful sentence structures, confident manipulation of narrative perspective and voice. Sustain coherent and persuasive transactional arguments. Accuracy of technical expression as foundation for quality of expression.

For example: A student might write a narrative opening that demonstrates genuine craft — precise vocabulary, purposeful sentence structures, and confident manipulation of narrative perspective and voice.

Building from Year 10

In Year 10, students produced narratives with technical sophistication and transactional writing with rhetorical control. Now they demonstrate genuine control and craft with a distinctive voice.

Preparing for Year 12

In Year 12, students will sustain independent analytical argument across extended writing for NEA coursework, writing with scholarly precision and genuine engagement.

7

Vocabulary and Grammar

Command a rich, precise vocabulary across analytical and creative writing. Use grammatical knowledge as a tool of craft. Vocabulary and grammar should be largely internalised — automatic resources for thinking and writing.

For example: By this stage, a student might deploy terms like didactic, polemic, and motif automatically, using grammatical knowledge as a natural resource for analysis and writing.

Building from Year 10

In Year 10, students commanded a broad analytical vocabulary and deployed varied sentence structures as tools of craft. Now vocabulary and grammar should be largely internalised.

Preparing for Year 12

In Year 12, students will command an extensive critical vocabulary and use grammatical knowledge at a sophisticated level to articulate how writers’ syntactic choices create voice, rhythm, and emphasis.

The transition to A-Level demands a step change in independence and sophistication. Students read across radically different periods and traditions, encounter formal critical perspectives as analytical lenses, and write extended essays. The emphasis is on reading against the grain, engaging with literary and critical context, and beginning to develop a scholarly voice.

1

Reading for Understanding

Read complex literary texts with independence, stamina, and critical attention. Sustain close reading across long and structurally complex works. Move fluently between texts from radically different periods, traditions, and registers — Renaissance drama, modern prose, contemporary poetry — without requiring explicit support for basic comprehension.

The linguistic challenge at A-Level is substantially greater not because individual texts are necessarily harder, but because students must navigate a wider range of registers with full independence and at greater speed.

For example: A student might move fluently between Othello (Renaissance verse drama), A Streetcar Named Desire (mid-century American realism), and contemporary poetry without requiring explicit support for comprehension.

Building from Year 11

In Year 11, students re-read texts with deeper understanding and navigated 19th-century prose with confidence. Now they read with full independence across radically different periods and registers.

Preparing for Year 13

In Year 13, students will read with full critical independence, navigating intellectually demanding poetry with complex syntax and philosophical argument, self-diagnosing and resolving comprehension difficulties.

2

Reading for Meaning

Understand that literary texts operate on multiple levels simultaneously — narrative, symbolic, thematic, formal — and that sophisticated reading holds these together. Read against the grain when appropriate: identifying what a text assumes, excludes, or reveals about its values. Understand that texts from different periods create meaning through radically different strategies.

For example: In A Streetcar Named Desire, a student might read against the grain — identifying what the play assumes or reveals about masculinity, desire, and the American South — holding narrative, symbolic, and thematic levels simultaneously.

Building from Year 11

In Year 11, students developed genuinely layered reading and embraced ambiguity. Now they hold multiple levels of meaning simultaneously and begin reading against the grain.

Preparing for Year 13

In Year 13, students will produce genuinely personal and well-grounded interpretations, understanding that great literature resists simple interpretation and that the most rewarding readings embrace ambiguity and tension.

3

Analytical Reading

Produce sustained, detailed close reading integrating analysis of language, form, and structure. Analyse the conventions of specific genres (tragedy, dramatic monologue, post-modern poetry) and how individual texts work within and against those conventions. Compare how different writers across different periods handle similar themes or formal challenges.

For example: When reading Othello, a student might analyse how Shakespeare works within and against the conventions of tragedy — how Iago’s manipulation is constructed through specific rhetorical strategies, and how the play’s structure drives its dramatic irony.

Building from Year 11

In Year 11, students produced integrated close reading across multiple levels. Now they analyse genre conventions, compare across periods, and produce sustained detailed close reading.

Preparing for Year 13

In Year 13, students will produce close reading of the highest order: attending simultaneously to language, form, context, and critical tradition, and evaluating the achievements of writers.

4

Writer’s Purpose and Context

Engage with literary and critical context — not just biographical or historical but the traditions within which texts operate. Begin to encounter formal critical perspectives (feminist, postcolonial, Marxist) as lenses that illuminate different aspects of a text — always returning to the writer’s choices.

For example: A student might explore how Williams constructs Blanche DuBois’s rhetoric as a study in linguistic self-presentation — how the play responds to mid-century American cultural tensions through dramatic craft — always returning to the writer’s choices.

Building from Year 11

In Year 11, students used contextual knowledge with discrimination to illuminate specific moments. Now they engage with literary and critical traditions and begin using formal critical perspectives as analytical lenses.

Preparing for Year 13

In Year 13, students will engage fluently with multiple critical perspectives, evaluate different approaches, position their own voice within the broader conversation, and understand how the literary canon has been constructed and contested.

5

Analytical Writing

Write extended analytical essays (1,000+ words) sustaining a thesis across multiple paragraphs. Write about form and structure with the same precision as about language. Begin to integrate references to critical perspectives as genuine interlocutors.

For example: A student might write an extended essay (1,000+ words) comparing how Shakespeare and Williams present the destruction of a protagonist, integrating analysis of language, form, and emerging critical perspectives.

Building from Year 11

In Year 11, students produced polished essays with control of argument and precision of evidence. Now they write extended essays, address form and structure with precision, and begin integrating critical perspectives.

Preparing for Year 13

In Year 13, students will write thesis-driven essays (2,500+ words for NEA) with sophisticated argument, close analysis, critical references, and genuine independent thinking.

6

Creative and Transactional Writing

For NEA coursework, sustain independent analytical argument across extended writing. Write with scholarly precision: accurate referencing, measured critical voice, genuine engagement.

For example: A student might develop an independent analytical argument on a writer like Angela Carter, writing with scholarly precision and genuine critical engagement as part of coursework preparation.

Building from Year 11

In Year 11, students demonstrated genuine control and craft with a distinctive voice. Now they sustain independent analytical argument with scholarly precision for coursework.

Preparing for Year 13

In Year 13, students will conceive, research, and execute an independent critical project — the culmination of the writing progression from scaffolded paragraph to independently conceived critical essay.

7

Vocabulary and Grammar

Command an extensive critical vocabulary: metatheatrical, subtext, unreliable narrator, hamartia, catharsis, objectification, binary opposition, post-modernism. Use grammatical knowledge at a sophisticated level: articulating how a writer’s syntactic choices create voice, rhythm, and emphasis.

For example: Through texts like Othello and A Streetcar Named Desire, a student might command terms like metatheatrical, subtext, hamartia, and unreliable narrator, and articulate how each writer’s syntactic choices create voice and rhythm.

Building from Year 11

In Year 11, vocabulary and grammar were largely internalised as automatic resources. Now students command an extensive critical vocabulary and use grammatical knowledge at a sophisticated analytical level.

Preparing for Year 13

In Year 13, students will command the full range of critical, literary, and linguistic vocabulary, using language with the precision and confidence of a developing scholar.

The culmination of the progression. Students read with full critical independence, produce genuinely personal interpretations that embrace contradiction and complexity, and write extended thesis-driven essays with scholarly confidence. They engage fluently with multiple critical perspectives and conceive independent critical projects — thinking and writing as developing scholars.

1

Reading for Understanding

Read with full critical independence. Navigate prose from different periods and cultures, understanding how radically different linguistic registers create meaning. Read intellectually demanding poetry with complex syntax, conceits, and philosophical argument. Understanding is fully internalised: students self-diagnose comprehension difficulties and resolve them independently.

At this stage, the understanding challenge is qualitative rather than scaffolding-dependent: dense literary prose demands patience with subordination and irony; intellectually rich poetry demands comfort with extended argument and allusion.

For example: When reading Metaphysical poetry — Donne’s complex syntax, extended conceits, and philosophical argument — a student might navigate demanding intellectual content as a fully independent reader, resolving comprehension difficulties themselves.

Building from Year 12

In Year 12, students read with independence across different periods and registers. Now they read with full critical independence, navigating the most demanding poetry and prose as independent readers.

Preparing for university

At university, students will read primary texts independently and extensively, navigating unfamiliar periods, traditions, and theoretical frameworks without routine support.

2

Reading for Meaning

Read to produce genuinely personal and well-grounded interpretations. Understand that great literature resists simple interpretation and that the most rewarding readings embrace ambiguity, tension, and contradiction. Read across periods and forms to identify patterns, parallels, and divergences.

For example: Comparing novels like Tess of the D’Urbervilles and A Thousand Splendid Suns, a student might produce genuinely personal interpretations of how each writer presents women’s agency — embracing the tension between Hardy’s determinism and Hosseini’s resilience narrative.

Building from Year 12

In Year 12, students held multiple levels of meaning simultaneously and began reading against the grain. Now they produce genuinely personal interpretations that embrace ambiguity and contradiction.

Preparing for university

At university, students will develop fully independent critical readings, engage with theoretical approaches to meaning-making, and contribute original interpretations to scholarly conversation.

3

Analytical Reading

Produce close reading of the highest order: attending simultaneously to language, form, context, and critical tradition. Analyse how writers across different periods represent similar ideas differently. Evaluate the achievements of writers, not just their techniques.

For example: A student might analyse how Hardy and Hosseini explore women’s experience through radically different formal choices — Victorian omniscient narration versus modern dual perspective — evaluating the achievements of each approach.

Building from Year 12

In Year 12, students analysed genre conventions and compared across periods with sustained close reading. Now they produce close reading of the highest order, evaluating achievements rather than just techniques.

Preparing for university

At university, students will produce original close readings that contribute to scholarly understanding, combining precise textual attention with theoretical sophistication.

4

Writer’s Purpose and Context

Engage fluently with multiple critical perspectives, understanding their implications for reading. Evaluate different approaches — feminist, historicist, formalist — understanding that each illuminates what others obscure. Position one’s own critical voice within the broader conversation. Understand how the literary canon has been constructed, contested, and revised.

For example: A student might engage with feminist and historicist readings of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, evaluating how each lens illuminates different aspects of Hardy’s presentation of Tess — and positioning their own critical voice within the conversation.

Building from Year 12

In Year 12, students began using formal critical perspectives as analytical lenses. Now they engage fluently with multiple perspectives, evaluate different approaches, and position their own critical voice.

Preparing for university

At university, students will engage independently with the full range of critical and theoretical approaches, develop their own critical positions, and understand the politics of canon formation.

5

Analytical Writing

Write extended, thesis-driven essays (2,500+ words for NEA) demonstrating sophisticated argument, close analysis, critical references, and genuine independent thinking. Write with stylistic confidence: precise without being arid, personal without being anecdotal, assured without being dogmatic. Synthesise across texts and periods with fluency.

For example: A student might write a thesis-driven essay (2,500+ words) comparing the presentation of women and society across two novels, with sophisticated argument, close analysis, and critical references.

Building from Year 12

In Year 12, students wrote extended essays integrating critical perspectives. Now they write thesis-driven essays of 2,500+ words with sophisticated argument, stylistic confidence, and genuine independent thinking.

Preparing for university

At university, students will produce independent research essays and a dissertation (5,000–15,000 words) with full engagement with primary texts, critical theory, and scholarly debate.

6

Creative and Transactional Writing

For NEA, conceive, research, and execute an independent critical project. This represents the culmination of the writing progression: from the scaffolded paragraph of Year 7 to the independently conceived critical essay of Year 13.

For example: A student might conceive, research, and execute an independent critical project — choosing their own texts, developing their own thesis, and writing with genuine authorial agency.

Building from Year 12

In Year 12, students sustained independent analytical argument with scholarly precision. Now they conceive, research, and execute an independent critical project with genuine authorial agency.

Preparing for university

At university, students will conceive and execute independent research projects, develop original arguments through extended writing, and contribute to scholarly conversation.

7

Vocabulary and Grammar

Command the full range of critical, literary, and linguistic vocabulary. Use language with the precision and confidence of a developing scholar. Understand that the way a critical argument is expressed is itself an act of meaning-making.

For example: A student reading Metaphysical poetry and 19th-century prose might command the full critical vocabulary — conceit, binary opposition, objectification, determinism — using language with scholarly precision.

Building from Year 12

In Year 12, students commanded an extensive critical vocabulary and used grammatical knowledge at a sophisticated analytical level. Now they command the full range with scholarly precision.

Preparing for university

At university, students will deploy the full vocabulary of literary criticism and theory with precision, contributing original formulations to scholarly discourse.

Think Like an English Scholar

These ten statements capture the culmination of the progression — the disciplinary habits of mind that mark genuine English scholarship.

1
Every word is a choice.
Writers select, reject, and shape language deliberately. Understanding why — and what was not chosen — is the heart of analytical reading.
2
Form is meaning.
A sonnet’s fourteen lines, its volta, its metre — these are not containers for meaning but part of it. How something is said is inseparable from what is said.
3
Understanding comes before meaning.
You must be able to follow a text before you can interpret it. The tip of the iceberg matters — but the real depth is beneath.
4
Context illuminates the writer.
Knowing when and why a text was written deepens your reading — but only when it reveals something about the writer’s purpose and craft. Context explains choices; close reading reveals what those choices achieve.
5
Readers make meaning.
A text does not have a single, fixed meaning. Meaning is made in the transaction between reader and text, shaped by what the reader knows, feels, and brings.
6
Good analysis is specific.
The difference between a weak reading and a powerful one is precision — close attention to particular words, images, and structures, grounded in evidence.
7
Grammar is power.
Understanding how language works — its structures, patterns, and possibilities — gives you power as both reader and writer. Grammar is not rules; it is a repertoire of choices.
8
Complexity is a feature, not a flaw.
The best literature resists simple answers. Ambiguity, contradiction, and tension make texts rich — and the best critics explore these rather than explaining them away.
9
Writing is thinking.
The act of writing does not merely record ideas; it develops them. The best writing emerges from the struggle to find the right word, the right structure, the right argument.
10
The canon is a conversation.
Literature is not a museum of fixed masterpieces but an ongoing conversation across centuries, cultures, and forms. Every text responds to what came before and shapes what comes after.

Key References

Reading: Foundational Models

Gough, P. and Tunmer, W. (1986) ‘Decoding, reading, and reading disability,’ Remedial and Special Education, 7(1), pp. 6–10.
Hoover, W. and Gough, P. (1990) ‘The simple view of reading,’ Reading and Writing, 2(2), pp. 127–160.
Scarborough, H. S. (2001) ‘Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities,’ in Neuman, S. and Dickinson, D. (eds.) Handbook for Research in Early Literacy. New York: Guilford Press.
Rosenblatt, L. (1938/1995) Literature as Exploration. 5th ed. New York: Modern Language Association.
Rosenblatt, L. (1978) The Reader, the Text, the Poem. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Kispal, A. (2008) Effective Teaching of Inference Skills for Reading. DCSF-RR031. London: NFER.

Writing: Cognitive Processes and Grammar

Flower, L. and Hayes, J. R. (1981) ‘A cognitive process theory of writing,’ College Composition and Communication, 32(4), pp. 365–387.
Bereiter, C. and Scardamalia, M. (1987) The Psychology of Written Composition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Myhill, D., Jones, S., Lines, H. and Watson, A. (2012) ‘Re-thinking grammar,’ Research Papers in Education, 27(2), pp. 139–166.
Jones, S., Myhill, D. and Bailey, T. (2013) ‘Grammar for writing?’ Reading and Writing, 26(8), pp. 1241–1263.
Myhill, D. and Watson, A. (2014) ‘The role of grammar in the writing curriculum,’ Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 30(1), pp. 41–62.

Vocabulary

Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G. and Kucan, L. (2002/2013) Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. New York: Guilford Press.

Cognitive Science

Sweller, J. (1988) ‘Cognitive load during problem solving,’ Cognitive Science, 12(2), pp. 257–285.
Kalyuga, S., Ayres, P., Chandler, P. and Sweller, J. (2003) ‘The expertise reversal effect,’ Educational Psychologist, 38(1), pp. 23–31.

Official and Regulatory

Ofsted (2022) Research Review Series: English. London: Ofsted.
Ofsted (2024) Telling the Story: The English Education Subject Report. London: Ofsted.