English

Year 11 begins the CCEA GCSE English Language and English Literature courses, which are examined separately and reward different skills.

Language work covers reading and analysing non-fiction and media texts, writing for purpose and audience, and the controlled assessment tasks CCEA sets, alongside the assessed Talking and Listening component. Literature work covers a Shakespeare play, a prose text, poetry and drama.

The most common weakness at this stage is essay structure under time pressure. Practising full-length responses with detailed feedback — rather than reading more content — is what actually moves grades in Year 11.