THE DUKE OF YORK�S SCHOOL, DOVER

							                               THE DUKE OF YORK’S ROYAL MILITARY SCHOOL

                                            ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
STAFF

There are three full-time and one part-time members of the Department which is overseen as part of the
Faculty of Aesthetics and Communications. English is taught throughout Key Stages Three and Four,
leading to GCSE with some students taking a combined English Language and Literature course. A Level
English Literature is taught in the Sixth Form.

English teachers may be expected to contribute to the teaching of Drama at Key Stage Three.

The Subject Leader takes responsibility for Literacy across the curriculum and is expected to work
particularly closely with the SENCO.


CLASSROOMS AND EQUIPMENT

The English Department classrooms are currently adjacent to each other along one corridor, allowing
easy and frequent communication between English staff. The rooms are spacious and well furnished.

The English Department is particularly well resourced, with a wide range of fiction, drama and poetry,
and is well supported by the School Library. Classrooms have interactive whiteboards, DVD players and
access to a large stock of videos and DVDs.


MEETINGS

Formal meetings are held once per fortnightly cycle during a timetabled period, but on virtually any day
of the week English staff have short informal discussions on a wide range of topics. The members of the
Department work harmoniously as a team but also believe in retaining their individual teaching
approaches and styles; and so although schemes of work govern what is taught there is considerable
freedom for each teacher.


CLASSES AND LESSONS

Currently, the average class size in Years 7-11 is 20, but higher sets have rather more pupils than lower
sets. There is no streaming in Year 7; in Years 8-11 the top set will be the strongest, the lower sets the
weaker, but the difference between any two adjacent sets is not very marked. Members of the
Department have a fair share of top and lower sets.

Classes in Years 7, 8 and 9 receive eight, fifty minute lessons of English per fortnight. In Year 10 classes
are taught English for seven lessons per fortnight and eight in Year 11. A Level classes receive the
equivalent of eleven lessons per timetable cycle.

Classes are run in a purposeful but relaxed fashion. Every effort is made to improve each pupil’s
command of written and spoken English and to foster interest in a wide range of literature. We believe
that although pupils should be required to work hard, the work ought to be presented in a way that
yields enjoyment.

Work in the English Department embraces four main activities - reading, writing, speaking and listening -
and from the beginning of their time in this school pupils are involved in all four. Although occasionally
the focus will be principally on one of these activities, in most lessons pupils will be practising at least two
of the activities, often simultaneously, as in reading aloud from a book.