KS5 English
Dream Jobs
- Lawyer
- Banker
- Nurse
- Learning support assistant
- Psychologist
- Social worker
- Consultant
- Politician
- Publisher
- Journalist
- Charity worker
- Product manager
- Business founder
- Teacher
- Writer
- Civil servant
- Actor
- Editor
- Librarian
- Art collector
- Actor
- Police officer
- Data analyst
What do our students say?
"English at school makes me question what it means to be a human in the modern world. My teachers support and encourage me with my analytical writing as well as my reading beyond the classroom. I really enjoy English." - Adillah
"English helps strengthen not only my analysis of language but also my understanding of life beyond school. I’m so grateful for the continuous support from the teachers." - Donas
"English offers an interesting perspective on a variety of modern issues, such as sexuality, the confusion around modern identity and even ideas about race and culture. I think it’s given me a great foundation for whatever I chose to study at university." - Terrell
What do our parents say?
"I feel very grateful for the amazing support provided by the English teachers at Oasis South Bank Sixth Form, even more so during the difficult time of covid. Both the academic and pastoral care provided was invaluable for young people’s mental health during so much uncertainty. My daughter has been so well supported in her learning and achievements." - Parent of a Year 13 student
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” - James Baldwin
KS5 English at OASB
At Key Stage 5, we want our students to encounter and enjoy complex literary texts, from Modern American drama to Shakespearean tragedy, Romantic poetry to Modernist poetry, Dystopian fiction to Post-Colonial fiction and Modern Indian poetry. With these rich, exciting texts, we intend to lay the foundations for students’ reading, allowing them to formulate independent opinions of the world and the words that people use to present it.
Writing Instruction
We know that our students have had a complex few years and that writing sixth form essays requires significant scholarship and understanding of the written word. We therefore intend to make this jump from Key Stage 4 feel possible and exciting by providing students with instruction in the small, crucial parts of language: how to write phrases which express contrast, how to integrate quotations efficiently, how to structure an argument. We are committed to broadening their literary worlds and, as a result, the way they express themselves in their lives to come and we know that this cannot comes from a tick box formula or an acronym writing guide. We intend to provide our sixth formers with a writing toolbox from which they can draw to express themselves clearly and accurately.
Critical Theory
We intend to expose our sixth formers to a range of literary and historical criticism which they apply to texts along with their own, personal readings, culminating in an extensive piece of coursework. As they read critical theory, they begin to understand that texts and writers respond to and grapple with each other’s works, and to see how their own voice might add to that literary discussion. The critical articles that we read with our students are complex and we therefore plan regular opportunities to instruct and practise university-level comprehension skills, reading habits and note-taking.
Reading Independently
We know that strong A Level students work hard outside of the classroom and so we intend to provide opportunities to enable students to do this, including giving bespoke book recommendations, a weekly book club and poetry intervention where students read outside of their course and learn more about literature across the ages. This strong focus on reading beyond the A Level curriculum ensures our sixth formers are not only confident in their understanding of complex writing but also work on independence, problem-solving and critical thinking. We want our sixth formers to forge original, interesting connections between texts from different times, places and writers, and so we continue their learning outside of the classroom and welcome all their responses to what they read.
As sixth form teachers, we go into all our lessons determined to encourage and reward our students’ scholarship and independence. We plan all our lessons intending to guide students to produce work that is highly detailed, and which interrogates the nuance of language. Our classrooms are full of clever ideas, engagement and joy.
Resources
For further information on the G Key Stage 5 English curriculum at OASB please email bridie.mcpherson@oasissouthbank.org (Head of Department)