English

English is taught by a team of eight specialists, who meet weekly to evolve and sustain policy.

This policy has always been to develop every boy’s capacity as a reader and writer, speaker and listener, pursuing these goals largely through class discussion. Since the nineteenth century, the school has been regarded as a pioneer in the use of dramatic performance in the teaching of Shakespeare, a tradition we have since extended to the annual Beaufoy Festival (in which all Second and Third Forms present an edited version of the Shakespeare play they have studied). The Fourth and Fifth Forms study for the International GCSE offered by Cambridge International Examinations; all boys are entered for examinations in both First Language English and Literature in English.

A large number of boys, of differing levels of ability, enter the Sixth Form to study English at AS and A2 levels. The discussion method features at all levels of English teaching, but predominates in the Sixth Form where the limited size of the sets gives it its greatest opportunity. There is a steady flow of boys proceeding to read English at the universities, and each year pupils are welcomed who wish to extend themselves beyond the limits of their A level.