This document outlines a scheme of work for an English department. It includes: - Four types of lessons planned: routine, content/DARTs, full English, and project lessons. - Starters and plenaries that focus on maintenance, inference, questions, and grammar. - Four types of integrated homework: improving work, responding to marking, producing texts, and speaking to others. - Formative and summative assessments integrated, including SATs, APP assessments, and question-based reading assessments.

1. My Scheme of Work
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FOR NAS ENGLISH DEPARTMENT INTERVIEW

2. Click on a point to see those ideas.
What are the
principles
underpinning this
scheme of work?
What are the
types of lesson
planned?
How is homework
integrated into
this scheme of
work?
How is
assessment
integrated into
this scheme of
work?
How would
teachers plan
with this scheme
of work?
What considerations
(particular to the UK)
should I be aware of
with this scheme of
work?
How does this
scheme of work
empower
meaningful
differentiation?
What is an overview
of how this scheme
of work functions?
How do starters
and plenaries
function?

3. Principles of my Teaching and this SoW
(slide 1 of 3)
 Students need to be inspired to aim for the very best. They need to raise
their internal bar of what is ‘acceptable’ Ron Berger.
 Students need to develop their internal frameworks of language
manipulation, and to connect this to the world outside the classroom,
including the social world of family and friends.
 The scheme of work needs to be responsive: it needs to present language
learning as a ‘messy journey’, not the illusion that a linear, generic scheme
of work creates (that expertise is achieved after a set number of lessons.

4. Issues arising from the Principles
(slide 2 of 3)
 Students need to be inspired to aim for the very best – public performance and
personal achievement are universally inspiring; teacher direction is not.
 Students need to develop their internal frameworks of language manipulation,
and to connect this to the world outside the classroom, including the social
world of family and friends – the profession has vastly different foci on what is
most effective in language learning.
 The scheme of work needs to be responsive: it needs to present language
learning as a ‘messy journey’, not the illusion that a linear, generic scheme of
work creates (that expertise is achieved after a set number of lessons –
teachers still require some linearity and content to plan comfortably.

5. What do all my students require?
(slide 3 of 3)
 Access to a framework of language use developed with NAU and NATE that presents the mechanics of language in ten
tangible techniques for reading/analysing, and eleven tangible techniques for writing/creating. This in the form of desk
mats, displays, and sheets in books.
 Personalised rubric booklets based on prior achievement: students use these to personally track formative achievement,
and to set realistic weekly targets.
 Rolling spelling and vocabulary sheets that are fully checked on a monthly basis, and used on a lesson-by-lesson basis.
 ‘Achieving Outstanding Progress’ Booklets that allow students to record where they have returned to work to improve it
based on previous targets and marking in addition to time allocated.
 Various extra sheets indicating advanced techniques in writing that all students are expected to attempt.

6. What are the types of lesson planned?
(Slide 1 of 5)
4 lessons a week at KS3; 5 at KS4.
Four types of lesson planned into the scheme of work:
1) Routine lesson – i.e. library lesson; grammar lesson; project lesson.
2) DARTs (Direct Activities related to texts)/ content lesson – i.e. analysing a text.
3) Full English Lesson – i.e. a lesson manipulating a text or language in a non-
written academic way, such as a debate, storyboard, drama.
4) Principle Lesson – i.e. teaching a distinctive technique of language such as
metaphor, sentence length etc.

7. Routine Lesson
(Slide 2 of 5)
1) Routine lesson – i.e. library lesson; grammar lesson; project lesson.
Library Lesson: students read fiction with either a personal or a class focus. Reading is monitored and
progress shared and celebrated with parents, tutors and students, ideally with Accelerated Reader.
Grammar Lesson: two facets. Firstly students receive a dictionary of personalised grammar learning
videos based upon my website. From marking, or personal recommendation, or personal choice,
students study, consolidate, and then teach the class a grammatical point.
Secondly, students receive a series of sentence types based upon the 1970s (to modern) American
work, ‘Sentence Styling’. They work academically upon these, and return to these types to use in
work elsewhere.
Project Lesson: Students take a technique from our framework. They select a principle of that
technique. They take three steps – demonstrate how the principle of that technique works outside of
language (e.g. football passing and sentence length). The second step is to apply that principle to
language examples that they personally source. The third step is to recreate that principle using
language examples that they create themselves. The project is then taught to the class,
occasionally with parents in audience.

8. DARTs Lesson
(Slide 3 of 5)
 Content is printed in an attractive way onto an A4/A5 folded sheet of paper.
 Students are taught to respond to all texts, including ‘zero draft’ texts where an initial response is often
confusion, fear, and/or ‘boredom’.
 Students will have a focus on what to analyse from these texts, but will not be able to respond to all
aspects. As the students become skilled, all students are expected to return to this content to analyse
for skills learned later.
 Content is both sourced and created by the students themselves, and this forms DARTs lessons where
the students analyse these texts according to personalised targets, too.
 My ‘content library’ consists of extracts from all major authors, and the ability to source content from
any contemporary author.

9. Full English Lesson
(Slide 4 of 5)
 Once a half-term, or every 6-8 weeks or so, students choose from a literal menu
a series of ‘Full English’ lesson types under the headings of ‘VAK’ and ‘Craft’.
 These lessons are used to adjust the rhythm of learning for that class, and
respond to the learning in the DARTs lessons.
 Often, Full English lessons develop speaking and listening skills in real
audiences.
 These lesson types are comprehensively sourced from NATE and the TES and
NAU communities.

10. Project Lesson
(Slide 5 of 5)
 The purpose is for students to develop an aspect of our language framework that becomes
internalised forever.
 The project is integrated in such a way that it is not a bolt-on, and nor that it compromises the
academic integrity of the outcome. It is not just ‘doing a poster/shoebox/model’.
 The students create their own criteria for the ‘presenting’ and ‘team work’ rubrics, and are
expected to use software and time management principles when organising themselves.
 Teams are chosen based upon personal interests rather than friendship groups.
 Presenting to a real audience is essential.

11. How do Starters and Plenaries
Function?
(Slide 1 of 3)
Starters: Routines established by starter type occurring very often on the same
day.
Plenaries: Mostly either a modified KWL chart to consolidate learning and
connect to next lesson, or questions that are recorded as audio to be
responded to in a future lesson.

12. What is the content of the lessons? –
Starters
(Slide 2 of 3)
Starters
1) Maintenance Starter: students have 10 minutes to maintain one or more of their
rolling spelling or vocabulary sheets, and
2) Inference Starter: comprehension based starter focusing on the skills needed to infer
accurately and creatively.
3) Question Starter: a speaking and listening starter involving thunks (philosophy activity)
or the solo taxonomy. This type of starter is essential to develop the speaking and
listening skills of students.
4) Grammar starter: a focused series of grammatical questions as part of a programme

13. What is the content of the lessons –
plenaries
(Slide 3 of 3)
 KWL chart – know as ‘Today I Learned’.
 Questions recorded in audio time using Evernote to be used at a later
time.
 Reference to criteria and self or peer-assessement

14. How is Homework integrated?
(Slide 1 of 2)
 Needs to be integrated – it is set at the start of a lesson and received as
part of a routine in which the students respond to it.
 Needs to inspire.
 Needs to be linked to academic progress.
 Needs to connect to our communities.

15. Four types of homework.
(Slide 2 of 2)
 Improving work via marking and criteria – after students have produced analysis that has been
marked according to our criteria, they are expected to improve it, and to indicate how they
have used the criteria to do so. Note that this is the ‘extra’ homework that the ‘Achieving
Outstanding Progress’ sheets require.
 Responding to all previous marking – In addition to the 10-15 minutes students have to respond
to marking in the maintenance starters every four weeks, students are expected to respond to
all dialogue, and update all rolling sheets in this homework. This is a painful lesson in time
management for some!
 Producing something – students are expected to create a text to be shared with the class.
Often this is linked to the project lesson.
 Speaking to family/friends – students are expected to bring evidence of a conversation with
family and friends, and often to source texts based upon this conversation.

16. How is Assessment integrated?
(Slide 1 of 2)
 Summative Assessment is completed via SATs papers or the APP assessments
(perhaps modified slightly). These have been peer-created by credible
sources.
 Students need to receive an overall grade, and a grade in relation to each of
the main AFs for the skills in writing.
 Reading assessments are almost always marked on a number basis with the
final number equating a final grade. This is especially the case in primary
school. This inflates reading grades, especially in primary. Reading should be
assessed by question types, with the ‘quality’ of the answer indicating a final
grade (like with KS4 assessment). This raises the issue of consistency across
teachers, but increases the validity.

17. Assessment – what types?
(Slide 2 of 2)
 The writing tasks need to cover all the text types that the students will
encounter later.
 The writing task text type needs to address something that the students would
have encountered earlier in the module. Too often students encounter a text
type in the assessment of which they have not had sufficient exposure to, and
are graded on their ability to replicate it.
 The reading task needs to consist of AF2 and AF3 (identify tasks and basic
inference), and more sophisticated AF5 and AF6 tasks requiring more
sophisticated answers. AF4 responses should be more detailed, too.

18. How Teachers would Plan using this
SoW?
(Slide 1 of 2)
 Content for the scheme of work would be planned ahead of time from the DARTs library (which can be added to by
anyone). About 1.5 times more content is needed to allow legitimate choice.
 Assessment times will be planned into the scheme of work, along with other school events.
 A week/fortnight ahead, teachers will plan (via their judgement) a series of lessons for the rhythm of learning of that class.
Marking of all books needs to take place on a weekly/fortnightly basis to legitimise this. This initial planning is contained on
a ‘Planning for Teachers’ scheme of work that allows responsive changes within routines. This allows cohesiveness amongst
the class-by-class planning.
 A week before, this initial planning is placed into the ‘Planning for Students’ PowerPoint that contains the learning
objectives, instructions, and resources for each student. This PowerPoint also contains key documents such as personalised
and exam criteria, copies of all the key rolling sheets, and links to our plenary and article examples.
 On each morning, the day’s lessons are reviewed, and any tweaks to what the students need or will do is made in
response to the previous lesson.

19. Issues with this type of planning
(Slide 2 of 2)
 It is not suitable for NQTs or teachers without experience planning schemes of work or curriculum. It requires
judgement of the achievement of the students to work successfully.
 It requires the ‘framework of language’ sheet and the ‘personalised rubric booklets’ to be integrated into the
practice of the teacher: they may have different ideas of how to prioritise language acquisition and
manipulation. However, critiques of the framework can still place every possible language technique within the
categories of this framework, and the criteria is vague enough to include them. In addition, the framework is
based upon students developing their own framework, not teachers developing their favourite ways to teach it.
 It can be time-consuming for teachers to use this when they are used to paper planning where they plan a
week ahead, and for teachers who are used to just following created schemes of work, and believe in the
illusion that linear lessons lead to progress.
 Teachers need to embrace the concept of liminality, and thrive on challenging their students. To do this, they
need to be able to:
- teach to challenge students, not just to manage their behaviour.
- teach all students as if they capable of achieving at the highest levels given the right time and support.
- teach with built-in consolidation where you return in a systematic and responsive way to the requirements of that
particular class.

20. Planning the Scheme of Work
What is the final assessment? What content do you require to enrich the students and increase
knowledge? What is the rhythm of learning?
Includes Homework
Type:
Includes
Connections to other
subjects and Global
Classroom
What is the type of Lesson? DARTs; Routine; Project; Full English
What is the type of homework: Improve; Maintain; Create; Discuss.
Routine includes:
Library; Grammar;
Project
Students to refer to
Personalised Rubric
Booklets in order to
manage targets
What does the lesson consist of? Type of Starter:
Maintenance; Question; Inference; Grammar; Quizlet
Starters aim to connect to the content
of the lesson where appropriate
Plenaries are mostly a modified KWL
chart, or a questions recorded for later
consolidation.

21. Other Considerations –
Different types of scheme of work.
(Slide 1 of 2)
 Non-fiction schemes of work (should be linked to key text types on KS4 exams).
 Poetry schemes of work (Poems should be linked with a focus for each, rather than
teaching ‘everything’ in ‘all).
 Creative writing schemes of work – should be linked to a real audience (e.g. NA Global
Classroom Creative Writing Competition).
 Studying a novel schemes of work – to study a novel in depth requires longer units.

22. Other Considerations
(Slide 2 of 2)
 Students should take surveys on a termly basis, and at the start of the year
in order to establish learning attitudes.
 Speaking and listening should be embedded in the question starters, and
in the Full English lessons. Also, student observations and sharing criteria
should act to empower students so they know what good learning is (not
just what is ‘engaging’).
 Students should be able to study an author and their work in depth over a
period of time while still retaining a skills-based focus.

23. How does this SoW differentiate?
(Slide 1 of 1)
 The main differentiation comes from the personalised rubric booklets:
students can access the same content and respond to it at different levels
academically.
 Students ultimately choose, with guidance, their own targets that develop
in DARTs-based lessons.
 Differentiation is about inclusion in the lesson, which means inspiring all
students to be receptive. This is aided by the rhythm of learning in which
the learning judges the composition of Full English and DARTs-based
lessons.