This document provides a template for conducting an initial subject knowledge audit for English. It lists various elements of English subject knowledge down the left column which can then be rated as basic awareness, improving knowledge, or secure knowledge and dated with relevant experience. Elements include curriculum frameworks, areas of study like writing and reading, linguistic devices, English literary heritage from various time periods, language topics, and skills specific to teaching English literature and language. The right column is for recording evidence of developing subject knowledge over time.

1. English Subject Knowledge Audit
Initial Subject Knowledge Audit
Create a document using the following template. Copy elements from the left hand
column and paste into the appropriate RAG column. As the year progresses, you should
be moving elements from left to right, and recording in the right hand column evidence
of your subject knowledge development.
English
Basic
awareness Improving
knowledge
Secure (but not
necessarily expert)
knowledge
Date and
relevant
action,
experience,
reading or
other
Curriculum
Frameworks
National Curriculum for
English
National Curriculum
for English
GCSE specifications
from more than one
board, in English,
English Language and
English Literature
AQA and iGCSE
Areas of Study:
Writing
Use of talk to prompt
writing, creative writing
prompts, treatment of
writing as process,
editing,
Use of talk to
prompt writing,
creative writing
prompts, treatment
of writing as
process, editing,
Reading
phonics, skimming,
scanning,
phonics, skimming,
scanning,

2. Speaking and
Listening
Group work (different
structures), roleplay,
presentation, public
speaking,
Group work
(different
structures),
roleplay,
presentation, public
speaking,
Linguistic/ literary
devices
metaphor, simile,
rhetorical questions,
alliteration, assonance,
onomatopoeia,
juxtaposition,
oxymoron, etc
metaphor, simile,
rhetorical questions,
alliteration,
assonance,
onomatopoeia,
juxtaposition,
oxymoron, etc
English literary
heritage (pre-
twentieth century)
Shakespeare e.g.
Macbeth etc including
contextual knowledge
about his time and
society, and
Elizabethan theatre
performance.
Shakespeare e.g.
Othello, Romeo &
Juliet, A
Midsummer’s Night
Dream including
contextual
knowledge about his
time and society,
and Elizabethan
theatre
performance.
e.g.
Other Renaissance
playwrights;
Romantics; Gothic;
Restoration Comedy;
Chaucer; Austen;
Hardy; Eliot; Dickens;
Brontës; etc.
Other Renaissance
playwrights;
Romantics; Gothic;
Restoration
Comedy; Chaucer;
Austen; Hardy;
Eliot; Dickens;
Brontës; etc.
English literary
heritage (twentieth
century) e.g. First
World War Poetry;
Golding; Steinbeck;
Plath; Pinter etc
First World War
Poetry; Owen,
Golding; Steinbeck;
Priestley; Lee,
Sassoon, Brooke
Contemporary
Writers e.g. Morpurgo,
Duffy, Armitage,
Heaney, Syal, etc
Morpurgo,
Duffy,
Armitage,
Heaney
Writers representing Behn, Zephaniah,

3. cultures and
traditions other than
White British e.g.
Agard, Zephaniah,
Syal, Toni Morrison,
Maya Angelou, Chinua
Achebe, Peter Carey,
etc etc!
Collins, Voltaire,
Flaubert, Zola
KS3 novelists e.g.
Morpurgo, Pullman,
Sachar, Gleitzman,
Blackman etc.
Morpurgo, Collins,
Almond,
KS3 plays e.g.
versions of Dracula,
Our Day Out etc.
Dracula
Language
 Word classes
Word classes
 Sentence Types Sentence Types
 Sentence parsing
(syntax)
Sentence
parsing
(syntax)
 Clauses Clauses
 Tenses Tenses
Punctuation Punctuation
Other topics used to
teach English
e.g. Greek myths
Greek
Mythology,
Ballads
Spoken Language
Study (GCSE)
• variations of usage in
both spoken and
written language.
• variations
of usage in
both spoken
and written
language.
• how geographical,
social, personal and
historical variation
shape and change
forms and meanings in
language.
• how
geographical, social,
personal and
historical variation
shape and change
forms and meanings
in language.
• frameworks for the
study of language, e.g.
pragmatics, face
• frameworks
for the study
of language,

4. theory, semantics. e.g.
pragmatics,
face theory,
semantics.
Post 16 (English/
English with Drama
Specialists only):
N/A
Skills and
understanding specific
to English Literature
teaching
• how texts relate to
the contexts in which
they were written,
including the
importance of cultural
and historical
influences on texts and
the relevance of the
author’s life and his/her
other works;
• the significance of
literary traditions,
periods and
movements in relation
to texts studied;
• the ways in which
texts have been
interpreted and valued
by different readers at
different times,
acknowledging that
interpretation of
literary texts can
depend on a reader’s
assumptions and
stance;
• the connections and
comparisons between
texts and how texts
relate to one another
Range could include:
 Shakespeare
 texts published
before 1900
 texts of sufficient
substance and quality to
merit serious
consideration, and
written originally in
English
N/A

5.  texts published
before 1770 (pre-
Romantic),
 texts covering prose,
poetry and drama.
Skills and
understanding specific
to English Language
teaching
• frameworks for the
systematic study of the
structure of language,
including phonology,
lexis, grammar,
semantics and
pragmatics;
• variations of usage in
both spoken and
written language
• frameworks for
elucidating the
structure of language,
• variations in language
according to mode
(speech and writing)
and context;
• the application and
usefulness, of different
linguistic frameworks
for the description and
analysis of speech and
writing;
• how geographical,
social, personal and
historical variation
shape and change
forms and meanings in
language.
N/A