Putney High School
English
The English Department at Putney High School is popular and encourages students at all levels to read as wide a variety of literature as possible and to develop their own skills in creative writing.
A full collection of texts from a range of cultures, a range of genres and a range of times is available for study.
GCSE
At GCSE we follow the OCR syllabus for language and literature, studying pre 1914 texts for coursework and post 1914 texts for the exams.
A Level
For A level we follow the EdExcel syllabus. Students explore texts from Chaucer to the present day, prose, poetry and drama, preparing for tasks in coursework and examinations.
At all levels an awareness of the contexts - social, historical, political, and spiritual - in which the texts have been written is established. A number of girls continue with their studies in literature at university.
The students’ own writing and a sense of their "voice", is encouraged. Over the last few years students have been successful in many competitions, including the Ottakers Poetry Competition and Spread the Word. We encourage writing of poetry and prose in class and have a poetry festival every year.
The English Department assists the Drama Department in producing plays. Years 9 and 10 took part in the National Shakespeare Festival with their version of ‘Hamlet’, a vast cast of Years 7 and 8 entertained audiences in the autumn term with ‘The Secret Life of Birds’ and Year 12 performed ‘Yerma’ (illustrated above).
We seize every opportunity to see plays in production, especially when there is the chance to see set texts in performance. This year productions have included: ‘Coram Boy’, ‘The Man of Mode’, ‘Othello’, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, ‘The Glass Menagerie’ and ‘The Waves’.
Extension activities are available for those wishing to broaden their literary knowledge and we study a breadth of literature, encouraging students to engage with different texts in a variety of ways.
