Summer Work

A Level English Literature students should read the first set text, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ by George Orwell over the summer. Students may also like to read the second set text we will be studying, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood. To help you better understand the dystopian world that Orwell creates, a useful text to read would be ‘We’ by Yevgeny Zamyatin. There is no requirement to read any texts over the summer beyond ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, but any dystopian texts you read will support your study of this unit, for example, ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury, ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley, ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro and ‘Ella Minnow Pea’ by Mark Dunn.

For A Level English Language, we recommend that you read Bill Bryson’s ‘Mother Tongue’ (an excellent introduction to the language) and Mark Forsyth’s ‘The Etymologicon’ (a fascinating look at the etymology of interesting words) over the summer. You may also like to read ‘Wordcrime’ by John Olsson (which gives an insight into the fascinating field of Forensic Linguistics). You will also find it useful to access online sites and blogs such as Mark Forsyth’s blog.inkyfool.com , Sara Thorne’s sarathorneenglishlanguage.com and UCL’s superb introduction to grammar at www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/intro/intro.htm.

A Level English Language and Literature students should read the set text, ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald over the summer. Students may also like to read ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ by Philip Larkin. In addition to the set texts, we would encourage students to begin reading widely across the fiction and non-fiction genres. Reading a range of online news sites will also be beneficial to Language and Literature students.

A Level English Literature students should read the set text ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley over the summer. Students may also like to read the second set text we will be studying, ‘The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories’ by Angela Carter. To help students better understand the gothic, it would be useful to read gothic texts from different periods such as ‘The Castle of Otranto’ by Horace Walpole, ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker, ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte and ‘The Wide Sargasso Sea’ by Jean Rhys based on ‘Jane Eyre’.  21st century texts such as Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Frankisstein’ are also recommended reads.

A Level English Language and Literature students should read the set text, ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald over the summer. Students may also like to read ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ by Philip Larkin. In addition to the set texts, we would encourage students to begin reading widely across the fiction (dystopian or gothic novels) and non-fiction genres (travelogues, memoirs, autobiographies, feature articles). Reading a range of online news sites will also be beneficial to Language and Literature students.

Are you planning to study A Level Maths or Further Maths? If the answer is yes, well done! But before starting you need to complete some GCSE revision work.

Your success in A Level Maths and Further Maths will rely heavily on the skills you bring. To try and ensure that you start the course with confidence, we have prepared a booklet of summer work that you need to complete before arriving in September. The topics are all higher level GCSE.

You will find the summer work using the following link: Summer Work