Work in the Subjects of the Curriculum (continued)

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION (continued)

A number of boys offer religious knowledge as a subject for examination at ordinary level in the General Certificate of Education. These boys receive some additional instruction in the lunch hour, but otherwise no special provision is made. The Christian fellowship is one of the voluntary societies of the school, with separate meetings for seniors and juniors.

ENGLISH

English is taught throughout the first five years of the school course; all boys take the English language paper in the General Certificate of Education examination, and a substantial number the English literature paper also. In the sixth form a group of appreciable size is studying English literature at advanced level, with one or two boys going on to sit scholarship examinations. The time allowance throughout is satisfactory.

Three masters share the bulk of the teaching among them. The senior English master organises his department with a meticulous care most helpful to other teachers of the subject, and is himself an accomplished practitioner in the classroom, particularly good at establishing a tutorial relationship with his forms. He is assisted by an alert and conscientious young teacher who shares the sixth form work, and by a probationer who promises to settle in quickly. Three other members of staff give a hand with a small number of classes in a way which is always competent and sometimes more than that.

The supply of books is now satisfactory, although it has had to be built up over the last few years. A tape-recorder would be a desirable item of equipment. One or perhaps two classrooms, furnished and provided in a manner congenial to English studies, would be helpful. The scheme of work is practicable and also far-sighted in its aims.

The standard of the work is good. It is especially notable in three ways. First, in the attention given to boys' own reading and the help proffered through reading lists and records; the records might be developed even further, with more training in formulating the boys' responses to the books they read. Time is found to introduce forms to the school library, to which might be added the public library and indeed all other sources of books. Secondly, boys are encouraged to write in a variety of ways and on a range of topics, sometimes in more sustained and extended pieces of work, and are stimulated by being asked to present their material in differing formats. Thirdly, useful practices are devised for learning to speak formally to a group, and to argue rationally and tolerantly. The course also provides plenty of opportunities of reading and considering significant books from the canon of literature, and it seeks ways of appreciating the value of drama more fully.

In the sixth form the same awareness of wider educational needs 1s shown for the older student in school. Considerable emphasis is given to the living tradition of English literature, and great efforts made to find time for reading around the texts set for examination. These older boys are also helped to learn to work at their texts for themselves. Some preliminary steps have been taken towards the approaching examination in English language at advanced level.
By and large, the work in English plays a particularly important part in the education of the boys in the school.

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