English

We can’t wait to meet you…Hello from the English Department! We are all so excited to meet and to get to you know when you start at Northgate. Normally during transition week we get to spend some time doing English tasks with you. Unfortunately, this time we won’t meet in person, however, we have put together some information on each of us and some of our favourite books! There are also some tasks based on characters and key skills for you to complete over the holidays so that you will be ready to go in September!

Mrs Kaufmann-Ward (EN7)

Head of Department

Mrs Richardson

(En1)Second in

department

Miss lyons(EN3)

Mrs galleyJoint head of

school

Mrs villarde(en8)

Ms Tonkin (En2)

Mrs graves (En4)

Head of year 7

Meet the Department…In the English department we have 9 English Teachers. Throughout this

booklet you will find out about our favourite childhood books. Come back to this page to fill those in. Can you find them all?

Mrs christie(en8)

Miss sanders(En6)

Favourite Book in Year 7: Favourite Book in Year 7:

Favourite Book in Year 7: Favourite Book in Year 7:

Favourite Book in Year 7: Favourite Book in Year 7:

Favourite Book in Year 7: Favourite Book in Year 7:

Favourite Book in Year 7: Throughout this booklet you will also find out about some other books members of the English Department love…

Your LessonsMrs Richardson’s favourite book in Year 7: ‘Different

Directions’ by Theresa Breslin

• You will have 7 English lessons a

fortnight in the room indicated on your

timetable.

• You will have an introduction to The

Learning Hub in your first two weeks at

Northgate.

• In these lessons you will cover reading,

writing, spoken English and of

course…spelling, punctuation and

grammar!

• You will study a novel, play extracts,

poetry and other interesting texts and by

the end of the year you will also be able

to stand up and give a speech!

• Homework will be set by your teacher

for you to complete independently.

Some characters you will meet in Year 7… Miss Sanders’s

favourite book in Year 7: ‘Alice’s Adventures in

Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll

Mrs Graves’s favourite book in

Year 7: ‘The Worst Witch’ by Jill

Murphy

Characters…Match up characters to their

descriptions

Read the descriptions of different characters and match them up with their pictures

One of Mrs Graves’s favourite novels is

‘Northanger Abbey’ by Jane Austen. Jane Austen

was an English novelist known primarily for her six

major novels, which interpret, critique and

comment upon the British landed gentry at the end

of the 18th century.

Mrs Kaufmann-Ward’s favourite

book in Year 7: ‘The Railway Children’ by

Edith Nesbit

A

B

C

D

1. She was above all the most formidable female. She had once been a famous

athlete, and even not the muscles were still clearly in evidence. You could see

them in the bull-neck, in the big shoulders, in the thick arms, in the sinewy

wrists and in the powerful legs. Looking at her, you got the feeling that this

was someone who could bend iron bars and tear telephone directories in half.

Her face, I’m afraid, was neither a thing of beauty nor a joy for ever. She had

an obstinate chin, a cruel mouth and small arrogant eyes.

2. In an arm-chair, with an elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on

that hand, sat the strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.

She was dressed in rich materials - satins, and lace, and silks - all of white. Her

shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and

she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was white. Some bright jewels

sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and some other jewels lay sparkling

on the table. Dresses, less splendid than the dress she wore, and half-packed

trunks, were scattered about. She had not quite finished dressing, for she had

but one shoe on - the other was on the table near her hand - her veil was but

half arranged, her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her

bosom lay with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and

some flowers, and a prayer-book, all confusedly heaped about the looking-

glass.

3. If the motorbike was huge, it was nothing compared to the man sitting astride

it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide.

He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild – long tangles of bushy

black hair and beard hid most of his face, he has hands the size of dustbin lids

and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast,

muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

4. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the

bearded dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about

them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear

quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering

along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are

inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green

and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and

thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long

clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs

(especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get

it).

Your Own Character Description

Your Character Description

You are going to choose a picture and write a description of the character you have chosen.

It is important that you choose someone who you think would be an interesting character to write about.

You will be given a success criteria and a vocabulary word wheel to help as well.

Mrs VIllarde’sfavourite book in

Year 7: ‘Nancy Drew Mystery

Stories’ by Carolyn Keene

One of Mrs Kaufmann-Ward’s favourite book

series is ‘The Complete Stories of Sherlock

Holmes’ by Arthur Conan Doyle. The character of

Sherlock Holmes is known for his powers of

deduction and amazing intellect!

What does interesting and engaging descriptive writing look like?

• Success Criteria:

• Clear – reader needs to be able to understand

• Interesting use of adjectives, verbs etc. –

reject your first choice and find a better word

• Use the senses to describe – how does your

character look, sound, feel, smell?

• Using techniques like simile, metaphor and

personification

• Use a range of sentence types - simple, compound,

complex. Don’t start every sentence with ‘the’

• Show the reader what your character is like,

don’t just tell them

Mrs Christie’s favourite book in

Year 7: ‘My Naughty Little Sister’ by

Dorothy Edwards

One of Mrs Villarde’s favourite books is ‘Pigeon

English’ by Stephen Kelman. It is told from the

point of view of Harrison Opoku, an eleven-year-

old Ghanaian immigrant living on a London estate.

Your Turn…

• Choose the character you are going to describe

• Use the ideas on the next few pages to help you plan

• Write 1-2 paragraphs to describe your character

• Remember our success criteria

• Use your planning and the word wheel on the next page

to help you

Miss Lyon’s favourite book in Year 7: ‘Noughts and Crosses’ by

Malorie Blackman

Mrs Galley’s favourite book in

Year 7: ‘Little Women’ by Louisa

May Alcott

One of Mrs Christie’s favourite books is ‘To Kill A

Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee. The plot and

characters are loosely based on Lee's

observations of her family, her neighbours and an

event that occurred near her hometown of

Monroeville, Alabama in 1936, when she was ten.

Word Wheel

Character 1 Character 2

Character 3 Character 4

Character Description Writing Task

• Now you have chosen your picture you need to think about how you are going to write your description of them.

• Here are some ideas to help you:

Appearance

Choose 3 features on their face to describe. For example their nose, their eyes and their hair. What do they remind you of? Can you describe them using a metaphor and/or interesting verb? For example: his nose jutted out of his face, a craggy rock in the middle of his face. Could you introduce a colour when describing these features? For example: her ivory skin was as pure as a white dove.

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Character Description Writing Task

Actions

• Now you need to make your character do something. Choose an action, for example picking up an object, making a drink etc. How would they do this action? What can you reveal about them as a character by introducing this movement. Think about using interesting verbs and adverbs. For example: his hands trembled as they slowly reached out for the cup. He fumbled for the handle and desperately tried to get the rim to his mouth without spilling the hot tea over himself.

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Emotions

• How does your character feel? You can imagine them in a particular situation or decide what emotion they are expressing the picture and describe that. For example: He was too ashamed to go back to his village without food. His desperation made sweat trickle down his forehead.

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One of Mrs Galley’s favourite books is ‘Little Women’ by

Louisa May Alcott. the story follows the lives of the four

March sisters- Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy- and details their

passage from childhood to womanhood. It is loosely

based on the lives of the author and her three sisters.

Character Description Writing Task

Now bring all your planning ideas together and write a paragraph to describe your character:

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One of Miss Sanders’s favourite books is ‘Black Beauty’

by Anna Sewell. The story is narrated in the first person

as an autobiographical memoir told by the titular horse

named Black Beauty- beginning with his carefree days as

a colt on an English farm with his mother, to his difficult

life pulling cabs in London, to his happy retirement in the

country.

English Summer Challenge…Character Collage/Mood Board

The English Department would like you to create a collage or mood board based on your favourite character.This can be your favourite character from a book, or if you want it can be your favourite character from a film.

You can draw, use a computer or collect items and stick them on your collage or mood board. There are some examples below.

The best ones will be displayed on Open Evening and everyone who completes this holiday work will be awarded their first merits at high school.

English Summer ChallengeThe English Department would like you to create a collage or

mood board based on your favourite character.

This can be your favourite character from a book, or if you want

it can be your favourite character from a film.

You should decide:

• Who is your favourite character and why?

• What objects do you associate with your character?

• What does your character look like?

• What happens to your character during the book/film they

are in? How can you represent this in your collage or mood

board?

• What emotions does your character experience? How can

you represent these in your collage or mood board?

When you have thought about the ideas above, you can create

your collage or mood board. This can be done by hand, on a

computer or by collecting different materials to make a mood

board. You can also add quotations said by your character if you

like.

We would like to take in the finished products the week

beginning the 14th September, so don’t worry about bringing

them in during the first week of term. Everyone who completes

the project will be awarded merits, and exceptional pieces and

exceptional effort will also be rewarded.

We hope you enjoy this project and we look forward to finding

out all about your characters in September.

Key Skills… The tasks on these two pages link to Mrs Kaufmann-Ward’s favourite stories when she was in Year 7. Can you remember the famous detective? There is a clue below!

Ms Tonkin’s favourite book in Year 7:

‘The Midnight Fox’ by Betsy Byars.

One of Mrs Richardson’s favourite books is ‘Jane

Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte. The book is a

Bildungsroman (coming of age novel) which

follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine.

including her growth to adulthood and her love for

Mr. Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield

Hall.

You are the latest recruit to the S.C.S.I. team (the SPaG Crime Scene

Investigators). Your first assignment is to find and correct all the

mistakes in the attached document. You are keen to impress your

new boss, Inspector E. Rrors, and show him that you are a worthy

member of the S.C.S.I. There are 17 spelling mistakes (some of which are homophones),

14 punctuation errors and 6 grammatical errors.

Error report

Errors: Tally of errors found:

Spelling

Punctuation

Grammar

Key Skills…

Highlight the errors as you discover them and write your corrections in the margins:

One of Ms Tonkin’s favourite books is ‘Small

Island’ by Andrea Levy. Mainly set in 1948, the plot

focuses on a group of Jamaican immigrants, who,

escaping economic hardship on their own ‘small

island’, move to England, the ‘Mother Country’, for

which the men have fought during World War II.

School trip

The students’ set off from school just after asembly Everyone was piled onto the bus in

eager anticipation of the day ahead. The teacher’s sat at the front and tryed to keep

everyone quite but it was an uphill struggle.

After traveling for about half an our, the coach turned off the mane road into a winding

country lane. it was at this point that the enjine started making funny whining noises. The

driver went pail and the coach came to a sudden stop. Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Ill have a

look at the engine and we will soon be on our weigh again.’

But half an hour past and the bus was still stationery. Their excitement turned to frustration

and boardom. Sum started to eat there packed lunches and the teachers faces was

etched with worry. ‘Don’t worry’, said Bob, the coach driver. ‘I will ring the depot and get

them to send another coach. we will soon be on our way again?’

Half an hour turned into one hour. One hour turned into too. The teachers had been

threw their entire repertoire of travel games and music and the students were became

irritable. The heat in the coach was unbearable. ‘Dont worry’ said Bob, trying to raise their

spirits. ‘Ill turn up the air conditioning and we will soon cool down’

Just as soon as he had said this, the releaf coach turned up and it really were a relief.

They wearily changed coaches and started on us way back to school. It was a trip that

should of been memorable for different reasons.

Key Skills…

One of Miss Lyons’s favourite novels is ‘Brick Lane’ by Monica Ali.

Brick Lane is a street at the heart of London's Bangladeshi

community. Ali's novel of the same name follows the life of

Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman who moves to London at the age

of 18.

SPaG Crime Scene Investigators (S.C.S.I.)

Mark your own: School trip

Spelling errors

Punctuation errors

Grammar errors

The students set off from school just after assembly. Everyone was piled onto the bus

in eager anticipation of the day ahead. The teachers sat at the front and tried to keep

everyone quiet but it was an uphill struggle.

After travelling for about half an hour, the coach turned off the main road into a winding

country lane. It was at this point that the engine started to make a funny whining noise.

The driver went pale and the coach came to a sudden stop. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll

have a look at the engine and we will soon be on our way again.’

But half an hour passed and the bus was still stationary. Their excitement turned to

frustration and boredom. Some started to eat their packed lunches and the teachers’

faces were etched with worry. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bob, the coach driver. ‘I will ring the

depot and get them to send another coach. We will soon be on our way again.’

Half an hour turned into one hour. One hour turned into two. The teachers had been

through their entire repertoire of travel games and music and the students were

becoming irritable. The heat in the coach was unbearable. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bob, trying

to raise their spirits. ‘I’ll turn up the air conditioning and we will soon cool down.’

Just as soon as he had said this, the relief coach turned up and it really was a relief. They

wearily changed coaches and started on their way back to school. It was a trip that should

have been memorable for different reasons.

English Word Search Try to find some of the favourite novels of

members of the English Department

W Y Y J T N P Q N T M J P G D

E W E N A L K C I R B S I Z N

T T B J F O B K J O Z F G V A

V J B S H U W C W D S H E G L

B L A C K B E A U T Y J O G S

G F R G I Z E A J H L B N E I

S H E R L O C K H O L M E S L

I Y G U N V F X M D R P N E L

N Y N X I I W M R F Q Y G R A

K X A E W B Z I M H H L L Y M

F C H D M T S U G G B N I E S

Y S T L M X R K D O H X S E S

V D R I B G N I K C O M H N M

P H O O H O P G Q G M F K A L

L P N M X O D F S L W E K J P

BLACK BEAUTY BRICK LANEJANE EYREMOCKINGBIRD

NORTHANGER ABBEYPIGEON ENGLISHSHERLOCK HOLMESSMALL ISLAND