GCSE English (Year 10 and 11 students)

Dear Bennett Parent,

Thank-you for your engagement with the first weekly read – we hope you enjoyed it. We really appreciate all of your questions and feedback, and hope to respond to it. As such, this week we have aimed to make the discussion points a little more accessible and specific. The aim of the initiative is to provide you and the students with examples of the kinds of texts they are likely to experience, unseen, in their language exam papers, therefore engagement with these, ideally each week, will increase their confidence when going into exams and work well alongside all we are doing in lessons. You might wish to read the texts individually and then discuss them together. Alternatively, you might read aloud, taking a paragraph or section each. Both of these strategies are regularly used in the classroom so students will be used to doing this.

As you will probably be aware, students need to achieve a good grade in their GCSE English Language in particular because it is a critical gateway qualification, which means that they can access the fullest range of subjects in Sixth Form study. The new GCSE in English Language makes very significant demands on students’ ability to read and comprehend a wide range of unseen texts, answering questions about them successfully under timed examination conditions.

The text will now be posted both on the Bennett English Twitter feed https://twitter.com/BadgerEnglish and on the school website news feed. There is very strong evidence to show that wider reading and supported reading can significantly advantage students as they prepare for this critical qualification, as well as enhancing reading confidence in other subjects.

Thank-you for your continued support,

Mr. Town
Head of English