Literacy at Enfield Grammar School has a ‘whole school approach’, with close connections to the English department. The ability to read, write, and communicate effectively is an ongoing life skill that we teach, both implicitly and explicitly, in lessons.
Across the school, all written work is literacy marked focusing on the student’s spelling, punctuation and grammar and students are expected to respond to this feedback. They are also encouraged in lessons to use their ‘Proof Reading Checklist’ to self-correct and edit their written work.
Literacy is not just about ‘SPAG’ (Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar)! It also encompasses reading, therefore, we have strong links with the Library / LRC (Learning Resource Centre). Together, we have created;
- Reading challenges for Years 7-9
- KS3 and KS4 ‘Bookopoly’
- Literacy Bulletins in Daily Notices
- Termly Wordle Competitions
- Form time reading activities
- Promotion of the Head Teacher’s reading competition
- Library book clubs
Literacy Curriculum
Key Stage 3 – Years 7 and 8 as part of their English curriculum, engage in a Writing Mastery lesson once a week. These lessons cover writing and literacy skills such as use of punctuation, grammatical concepts and spelling. The technical skills learnt in these lessons support not only English but their writing abilities in all subjects.
Students in Year 7 and 8 also complete a Reading for Pleasure lesson once a week, with one of these lessons being in our Library. These lessons encourage our students to explore narratives, characters and vocabulary through questioning and discussion, as well as embedding our school ethos of the power of reading. They also allow our students to take out their own books from our library to enjoy them at home.
In Year 9, alongside their English curriculum lessons, a fortnightly Literacy lesson is completed. These complement the main curriculum whilst consolidating their prior literacy knowledge and introducing more complex literacy skills in preparation for GCSE.
Key Stages 4 and 5 – During the upper Key Stages, students are encouraged to practise their literacy skills, use the library to advance their knowledge and stretch themselves in their chosen subjects.
Year 5 Reading Mentors
September 2021 – Our Year 7s have already completed 100 missions on Literacy Planet!
September 2021 – Our Year 7s have already completed 100 missions on Literacy Planet!
Click here to view Our Favourite Books
Breis Visit
We were lucky to have Author, Poet, and Rapper; BREIS visit us and run three writing workshops with invited year 9 pupils. He also performed at our year 9 assembly. The boys worked well in the sessions and Omari, Hezekiah and Luc performed their work in assembly. Well done boys. Excellent!
World Book Day
What a buzz! There was magic wafting around, there was mystery murder going on in the library (!), there was even green eggs and ham on the lunch menu ..
The English department delivered some great WBD lessons for KS3 – we’ve have already had some Year 7s asking about “Lord of the Flies” and whether we have it in the library and there was a class debate over the Life of Pi….film versus book.
Form Tutors supported all the action by running the Form Time quiz. Ms Broadley and the Food Tech staff created more famous “Ms Broadley variety packs“. Mrs Rudolph coped rather well with a murder in her library, as well as organising student librarian competitions.
Running up to book day Mrs Rudolph was holding the Battle of the Books with years 7 & 8 – the winning book as voted b the students was: Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes
The English department were thrilled to host ‘The Globe Players’ recently with their fantastic adaptations of Macbeth and An Inspector Calls.
The students excelled themselves with their engagement and their questions during the Q&A session after each performance: the students asked the best questions that the actors had ever heard from a school.
Armistice Day – display in the Library
An amazing visit from the #inspiring Rt. Hon Stuart Lawrence!
We were proud to welcome Stuart Lawrence yesterday and to listen to him talk about the work the Lawrence family have done over the past 28 years to shine a light into the darkness of institutional and systemic racism.
Three lucky students, Eric, Hector and Que were invited to a special presentation at the Town Library on 19 November, where they each received signed copies of Stuart’s book.
Stuart has a book out now: ‘Silence Is Not An Option: You Can Impact The World For Change’ – grab yourself a copy!
Poetry Slam! Competition
Certificates were awarded to: Colm, Shaheer, Emre, Jude, Taylor, Nana, Ahmed, Berat
and Tyrell as contributing poets. Well done!
Penguin Books and Authors Aloud UK invited our Year 8s to take part in a virtual schools event this week with author Femi Fadugba to celebrate the publication of his brilliant debut novel ‘The Upper World’ .
Year 7 Reading Challenge!
Get ahead! How many of these books can you read in year 7?
- The Thief Lord – Cornelia Funke
- Goodnight Mr Tom – Michelle Magorian
- Artemis Fowl – Eoin Colfer
- Welcome to the World of Norm – Jonathon Myers
- The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
- The Boy in Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne
- Liar & Spy – Rebecca Stead
- Bzrk – Michael Grant
- My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece – Annabel Pitcher
- The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Books: Animal Farm by George Orwell and Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
Year 9 Book Club
Books: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Year 9 and 10 BookFlix Reading Club
6th Form Book Club Challenge
Try and read as many books as you can from the image below;
Click here to view Our Favourite Books
2020/21 Staff CPD: Reading Focus & Strategies
Staff used the final session of Drive to Fly (part of our CPD staff programme) to reflect on the reading focus for this year and various reading strategies that have been discussed.
Each department was taught two lessons from other subjects which were created for
KS3/4 to bring fiction reading into all subjects. We tried to ensure that each
department had subjects that were quite different to their own in order to
bring variety to the sessions.
English saw two incredible reading lessons from Science and Geography, Humanities were immersed in MFL and P.E., Science partook in some Citizenship and D.T. etc. Teachers were engaged and thoroughly enjoyed the sessions – learning about other subjects as well as gaining new techniques around reading that they could bring into their future lessons.
Feedback was shared at the end of each mini lesson, which departments can bring forward
into their future planning.
Transition Read-a-Thon 2021 – Year 6 to 7
Literacy Planet – March 2021
Favourite quotes from our English Department:
Ms Rudolph “This above all; to thine own self be true.” -Hamlet (Polonius: Act 1 scene 3)
Ms Yuksel “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” – As You Like It (Jacques: Act 2 scene 7)
Ms Foxley “Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in it!” – The Tempest (Miranda: Act 5 scene 1)
Ms Gwatkin “How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” – The Merchant of Venice (Portia: Act 5 scene 1)
Mr Hurley “If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wish’d for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.” – Henry IV Part One (Prince Henry: Act 1 scene 2)
Short Story Competition – Spring Term 2021
Leukaemia Cancer Society – ‘The Day everything Changed’
Fancy putting pen to paper and entering this competition…? Please let Miss Print know if you do.
#worldbookday2021
Author, Penny Joelson, Virtual Visits – March 2nd & 15th 2021
We are delighted to announce that author, Penny Joelson, is going to virtually visit Enfield Grammar School in honour of World Book Day 2021.
Penny will be virtually visiting the school to join online classes for our year 9 pupils.
Please advise your son of the following times:
Tuesday 2nd March 2021:
Year 9 classes 9X/EN1, 9X/EN3, 9X/EN4 & 9Y/EN3 – please go to your timetabled google classroom (online) for Period 3 – Presentation – 11.05am.
Monday 15th March 2021: If year 9 are back in school – go to your timetabled lessons
(If year 9 are not back in school – Year 9 classes 9X/EN2, 9Y/EN1 & 9Y/EN2 – please go to your timetabled google classroom (online) for Period 4a – Presentation – 12.05pm.)
Penny writes Young Adult thrillers and mystery novels, these are are all told from the viewpoints of unusual protagonists whose voices are often not heard….:-
Things the Eye Can’t See (Egmont 2020)
The Girl Who Wasn’t There/ Girl in the Window (Sourcebooks Fire 2020/ Egmont 2018)
I Have No Secrets (Egmont 2017/Sourcebooks Fire 2019)
International men’s Day – 19th November 2020
Reflecting on what it is like to be a man in 2020
National Poetry Day – 1st October 2020
Literacy Planet Certificate of Achievement – July 2020
Yay! We’ve received a congratulations & certificate from Literacy Planet!
Our EGS English Dept has been using this online literacy platform with KS3 classes; our boys have mow completed over 3,000 exercises!
Amazing feedback and wonderful that our students have been engaging.
World Book Day – 4th March 2020
This year’s World Book Day was a great success at EGS! Lots of subjects took a lesson off timetable to spend the day reading around their subjects and building up their cultural capital through reading.
In English, classes were challenged to decide, ‘Can you judge a book by its cover?’ by looking at classical literature with ‘boring’ covers and trying to use their detective skills to work out the plots. In Geography, some classes read ‘Horrible Geography’ books and used them to widen their knowledge about volcanoes. In Food Tech, the students used recipe books to try to find and create the best burger recipe!
We also held a school wide staff dress up competition! The students loved exploring around the school sites to find the famous book characters and to expand their literary knowledge. Well done to our winners and runners up!
Poet’s Visit
As part of WBD 2020, we were fortunate enough to have Adisa, a renowned poet and spoken word artist, visit the school to deliver writing workshops for a selection of Year 7-9 students. The boys thoroughly enjoyed listening to his poems, receiving guidance on their writing and performing their poems from the workshop.
