To teach young people to communicate clearly and to help them respond sensitively and curiously to the words of others is at the core of what we do. At KES we aim to expose our pupils to a rich variety of texts, fiction and non-fiction, so as to allow them to see through the eyes of others and to view the world from perspective broader than their own. Central to the study of English is discussion. Debating the moral and ethical questions posed by texts helps young people develop their own ideas and values. Alongside inspiring our pupils to read widely and bravely and form their own responses to texts and the world around them, we aim to equip them with the confidence and linguistic tools to articulate their own thoughts and views with force, clarity and sophistication, both orally and on paper. Opportunities for extra-curricular writing come in the form of our poetry, short story and journalism competitions and our curriculum is delivered by teachers who not only teach the subject but who are passionate about the Arts and culture more broadly and who share this through their running of a range of clubs and societies from Creative Writing to Literary and Cultural Discussion Group and in the publication of our acclaimed annual Anthology, where our most accomplished and ambitious poets and fiction writers have their work published. Furthermore, alongside an appreciation of all things literary, our approach to English teaching takes into account the influence of our subject on a range of other disciplines. There are few other subject areas or career avenues where the functional skills taught in the English classroom are not utilised and so we, through teaching pupils to be discerning readers, critical thinkers and confident when it comes to organising and presenting ideas, hope to prepare them to take a broad range of future paths. IGCSE (English Literature) & IGCSE (English Language) Over the two-year course, pupils study for the CIE IGCSE in English Literature, a course chosen because of the stimulating and diverse set texts on offer and as it provides the opportunity to produce coursework essays as well as writing examination responses. Alongside this, pupils prepare for the Edexcel IGCSE in English Language, in which, across two papers, they respond to nineteenth century fiction texts and twentieth and twenty-first century non-fiction texts as well as having the opportunity to write creatively in fiction and non-fiction forms. A LEVEL We offer two courses to follow on from IGCSE. The OCR English Literature course studies some of the most challenging texts by the world’s most well-known authors, from T.S. Eliot to William Faulkner and Edith Wharton to Harold Pinter. There is a great breadth to the course - we encounter texts from the seventeenth century right up to those written in the last decade, such as the poetry of Tracy K Smith, but our study also allows us to spend time really examining these texts as products of their time and through the lens of other readers as well as being works of art in their own right. The Eduqas A Level in English Language explores such questions as how do children learn to speak? What did English look or sound like several hundred years ago? Why do men and women speak differently and why does the same person’s speech change so markedly according to whom they are speaking? This course looks at written and spoken language now as well as how English has arrived in its current form.