A-Level English Language & Literature

You will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore your own inter­ests through inves­tiga­tive course­work based on extracts of your own choice. You will also com­plete group work, pre­sen­ta­tions, quizzes, dis­cus­sions, debates and role play.

The stan­dard require­ment for A Lev­els at Stam­ford Col­lege is 5 GCSEs at Grade 5/C or above as a min­i­mum for human­i­ties sub­jects and 6/B in maths for all sci­ence subjects.

Each A Lev­el sub­ject has its own addi­tion­al entry require­ments, please see below:

Min­i­mum grade 6/B or above in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture or Eng­lish Lan­guage and 6/B in anoth­er humanity.

We will review each appli­ca­tion on a case-by-case basis to ensure you get a place on the course most suit­able for you. We offer an online inter­view which will explain the A Lev­el pro­gramme and also allow for an infor­mal chat with the tutor for each sub­ject before an offer to study with us can be made to you.

Once enrolled one of the ways we make sure the course is right for you is through a very effec­tive ​‘6 weeks to suc­cess’ pro­gramme that oper­ates from the first day you start your course. This includes sup­port such as (but not lim­it­ed to):

• Allow­ing you to change sub­ject and course if you change your mind or find the course is not right for you in the first 6 weeks ‑sub­ject to availability 
• Mov­ing you between A‑Levels and a Lev­el 3 Diplo­ma if you are find­ing your cur­rent lev­el too hard — sub­ject to availability 
• One-to-one reviews with your aca­d­e­m­ic tutor to ensure you are pro­gress­ing and achiev­ing well

Our course enquiries and admis­sions team can be con­tact­ed at enquiries@​stamford.​ac.​uk should you have any fur­ther questions.

Dur­ing the two years of study, you will be reg­u­lar­ly assessed under test con­di­tions to prac­tise being able to under­stand and respond to the ques­tions asked in the cor­rect time allo­ca­tion so that you are ful­ly pre­pared for the final exams. There is an assess­ment cal­en­dar for A lev­els which includes timed assess­ment every 4 to 5 weeks. Feed­back gained from these assess­ments will help you to devel­op your skills, tar­get your revi­sion and where nec­es­sary enable us to pro­vide addi­tion­al sup­port. In Year 2 you will under­take course­work for this subject.

You will be required to under­take extend­ed read­ing to sup­port your study of Eng­lish and this will inform your course­work and exam answers.

You will study 3 A Lev­el sub­jects, plus tuto­r­i­al and career devel­op­ment ses­sions. Each sub­ject has 6 hours per week con­tact time, with approx­i­mate­ly 4 hours of inde­pen­dent study. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly we can­not accept stu­dents who only want to study a sin­gle A Lev­el sub­ject due to fund­ing limitations.

Exam­ple job roles:

• Pub­lish­er
• Jour­nal­ist
• Teacher
• Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Executive
• Pub­lic Rela­tions Consultant

Study­ing Further:

• Progress to a wide range of degrees in Eng­lish Lan­guage or Lit­er­a­ture, Teach­ing and Journalism.

You will study the fol­low­ing units:

• Lit­er­a­ture and Lin­guis­tic Analysis 
• Cre­ative Writing 
• Lin­guis­tic Terminology 
• Devel­op Lin­guis­tic and Ana­lyt­i­cal Skills

Study of 5 set texts including:

• Non-fic­tion­al Anthology 
• The Great Gatsby 
• Shake­speare’s Othello 
• A Street­car named Desire