GCSE English Update
Charlotte Andrews
Over the last term, it’s been a privilege to work with young people who are preparing to sit their GCSE English, and I’ve loved experiencing my previously separate worlds of home educating and English teaching coming together. I’ve ordered new exercise books for January, as the ones I gave out in September are already full!
So far, we’ve covered descriptive and narrative writing. Amongst other things, we’ve used descriptive techniques to create images; explored symbolism by giving objects a voice; used children’s picture books to explore narrative structure and experimented with narrative viewpoint and perspective by using the same image and writing from different points of view. The lessons have also featured art work which is on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum, so it has been a Cambridge-inspired experience!
There’s been a mixture of individual, small group and whole group work and one of the highlights for me has been seeing the benefits of collaborating on pieces of writing together. Most recently, we planned an exam response together, and then we each wrote part of the answer which formed a complete response when we put in all together. The room in the Meadows has a screen to project both my laptop and my own writing (with the help of a visualiser) which helps so much with modelling and sharing ideas.
The term ended with a practise exam response. Next term, we’ll be looking at Paper 1 of the Cambridge iGCSE 0990 exam, by reading and responding to texts and writing for form, audience and purpose, using ‘The Three Little Pigs’ to help us!
