Key Stage 3 (Ages 11–14)

These texts aim to build foundational literary skills and foster engagement.

📖 Drama

• A Midsummer Night's Dream – William Shakespeare

• The Tempest – William Shakespeare

• Our Day Out – Willy Russell

• Noughts and Crosses (play version) – Malorie Blackman, adapted by Dominic Cooke

📚 Prose

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon

• Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

• Private Peaceful – Michael Morpurgo

• Boy, Everywhere – A. M. Dassu

• The Giver – Lois Lowry

✒️ Poetry

• Selections from Poems from Other Cultures

• Carol Ann Duffy – various (e.g. “Valentine”)

• Benjamin Zephaniah – various

• Simon Armitage – various

• War poetry (e.g., Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon)

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🔵 Key Stage 4 – GCSE (Ages 14–16)

These are typically from AQA, Edexcel, or OCR GCSE specifications.

📖 Drama

• Macbeth – William Shakespeare (AQA set text)

• Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare

• An Inspector Calls – J. B. Priestley

• Blood Brothers – Willy Russell

• The Merchant of Venice – William Shakespeare (optional on some syllabuses)

📚 Prose

• A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

• Jekyll and Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson

• Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (less common)

• Lord of the Flies – William Golding

• Animal Farm – George Orwell

• Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro (Edexcel)

✒️ Poetry

• AQA Power and Conflict Anthology, including:

  • “Ozymandias” – Percy Bysshe Shelley

  • “My Last Duchess” – Robert Browning

  • “Remains” – Simon Armitage

  • “Poppies” – Jane Weir

• Unseen poetry also assessed (varies by board)

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🟣 Key Stage 5 – A-Level (Ages 16–18)

Depth, context, and critical interpretation are key here.

📖 Drama

• Othello – William Shakespeare

• Hamlet – William Shakespeare

• A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams

• The Duchess of Malfi – John Webster

• Death of a Salesman – Arthur Miller

• Top Girls – Caryl Churchill

📚 Prose

• The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

• Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

• Beloved – Toni Morrison

• Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

• Atonement – Ian McEwan

✒️ Poetry

• Selected Poems – Sylvia Plath

• Selected Poems – Seamus Heaney

• The Wife of Bath’s Tale – Geoffrey Chaucer (some boards)

• The World’s Wife – Carol Ann Duffy

• John Donne – Metaphysical poetry

• Romantic Poets – Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, etc.

• Modern Poetry – Larkin, Duffy, Armitage, Heaney,