English Language & Literature

Vision

Nurturing creative, confident and articulate readers, writers and speakers of English

About the Department

The English Department offers both English Language and Literature, providing students with a strong foundation in communication and critical thinking. All students are required to study English Language across all levels.

At the Lower Secondary level, Literature is offered to students in the G2 and G3 courses. At the Upper Secondary level, students may choose from a range of elective subjects, including Literature in English, where they engage with a variety of texts across prose, poetry and drama.

Assessment Principles

The English Department adopts a balanced approach through Assessment for Learning (AfL) and Assessment of Learning (AoL) to support and monitor students’ progress. These assessments provide timely feedback to guide teaching and help students deepen their learning.

Students engage in a range of assessment modes, including:

• Internal and External Competitions

• Projects

• Self and Peer Assessment

• Performance-Based Assessments

• Weighted Assessments

• Year-End Summative Assessments

2025 Highlights: Learning in Action

The English Language and Literature Department aims to design effective and engaging programmes that encourage authentic learning, allowing students to apply language and literary skills learnt to real-life settings, so that they can appreciate and adeptly use the language to communicate. This year, through alternative assessment, the department helped students to hone their research and communication skills as they prepared speeches, videos and posters that aimed to educate and raise awareness.

To deepen the love for the English Langugae students were given opportunities to hone their skills in writing and public speaking competitions. Our Secondary Four and Five students participated in the Live On Festival Essay Writing Competition organised by the National Organ Transplant Unit, Shermaine Lian and Keity Weng, were awarded the High Distinction and Merit award respectively in the Senior Category, a first time for our Secondary 5 students. In recognition of our support for this cause and our consistently good performance, our students were selected to be featured in the National Organ Transplant Unit’s promotional video.

At the Live on Festival Essay Writing Competition Award Ceremony

All students and teachers in the school also participated in Read for Books 2025 which is a National Reading movement and charity book drive with the intention of raising awareness of reading and sharing the gift of reading with the less privileged. In line with the school’s morning assembly programme which includes time set aside for students to read, this activity resulted in a pledge for 120 books for the movement, where the WondeRead inititaive is one of the major benefciaries.

Read for Books 2025

The department also organised signature programmes such as the Spoken Interaction (Secondary Three) and Advanced Text Analysis (Secondary Four)  to equip students in the specifc areas of language learning and to help them acquire some of the 21st century competencies.

Advanced Text Analysis Workshop

Advanced Text Analysis Workshop

The Literature Unit also launched the inaugural Poetry Fortnight, ‘Echoes & Ink’ to immerse students in the power of words and give them an opportunity to express their creativity and to explore diverse perspectives. Our Upper Secondary Literature students also spent a delightful evening watching ‘Macbeth’ at Fort Canning as part of the popular Shakespeare in the Park programme. The students were thoroughly immersed in the lively and suspenseful production, sitting in picnic style, moving along the plot together with audience and characters. They also managed to learn valuable aspects of theatre production in this experience.

These programmes and experiences have empowered our students to become empathetic communicators, discerning readers and creative enquirers.

We had a great time watching Macbeth!

Competitions