English
In This Section
English at Merchiston is about opening up the very best that has been said or written for every boy.
We achieve excellent results but we do this by sharing, with passion, the stories that people have told to one another throughout history to help them make sense of our world and our place in it. Through this, we give your son the ability to:
- respond searchingly and personally to what he reads
- think independently and analytically
- express himself with clarity and accuracy
- listen sensitively and critically to the views of others.
We believe that literary study expands our pupils' worlds. We believe that literary study nourishes our pupils’ inner lives and develops their emotional literacy.
Staff

Kate Anderson
Head of Faculty (Languages & Literatures)
PhD
Dr Anderson has a PhD in English Literature from the University of East Anglia and has previously taught in London and Bath. She is the Faculty Head of Languages & Literatures. Dr Anderson is also Resident Tutor in Laidlaw South.

Stephanie Binnie
Teacher of English
MA
Mrs Binnie is a Sixth Form Tutor; she was formerly an Assistant Housemaster in Laidlaw. She was formerly an examiner for OCR GCSE English Literature and is now an examiner for Edexcel IGCSE English Literature. Having been Head of Drama for several years, she assumed the role of Head of English for five years from August 2015. Mrs Binnie also teaches Classical Civilisation up to A Level and Latin in the Junior Years.

Natasha Callan
Teacher of English
MA, MSc, PGDE
Ms Callan obtained an MA in English Literature and History and an MSc in English Literature and Society from The University of Edinburgh. She completed her PGDE in English and History, also at The University of Edinburgh, and is qualified to teach both subjects. Ms Callan is also a Pringle and Rogerson tutor.

Calum Mechie
Teacher of English
MA DPhil
Dr Mechie has a DPhil on George Orwell from The University of Oxford and trained to teach on the bespoke Researchers in Schools programme. He has examined both GCSE and A-Level papers for different exam boards. He is also the Assistant Head Academic, assisting pupils with their university applications.

Katherine Upton
Teacher of English, MA, PDGE
Ms Upton read English at the University of Cambridge before pursuing an MA in American Literature at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. She held a University Presidential Fellowship for four years and her research interests included childhood and performance studies in addition to Transatlantic Literature. She received her PGDE from the University of Northampton. In addition to her academic qualifications, Ms Upton has participated in amateur and professional theatre for many years, leading to her involvement with drama in its many forms at Merchiston. She is currently studying part-time for an MEd in Teaching and Learning in the Arts with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to further develop her teaching practice.
Ms Upton is the residential tutor for Chalmers West boarding house and an academic tutor for the middle years.
Curriculum
Our curriculum works backwards from our goal of creating confident, articulate and culturally and emotionally literate students, with outstanding exam results.
In the Sixth-Form, we teach the OCR English Literature A-Level and the SQA Higher English Qualifications. Each allows us to teach a broad range of canonical texts and so to address weighty cultural issues. For the A-Level, we cover the Gothic genre, Shakespearean drama, a range of poetry spanning seven centuries and a novel written within the students' own lifetimes. For the Higher, we cover some Scottish poetry, contemporary drama and a Great American Novel. Success in either qualification requires significant powers of expression, and in the Sixth-Form we work closely with the boys to hone their writing skills, and to develop them beyond GCSE.
In the Fifth and Shell Forms, we teach the Edexcel IGCSE Qualifications: English Literature and English Language. The worldliness of these qualifications means they complement one another well, with themes emerging in the Language course's non-fiction anthology that permeate the texts and poems studied on the Literature course. As well as Shakespeare, we cover modern drama for the extended Literature coursework and a modern novel and poetry for the exam. The Language course also has a coursework component, assessing poetry and creative writing, as well as the exam, which assesses the boys' ability to engage with non-fiction texts and to write in a formal, transactional style.
From J4 to IV Form, the Department concentrates on building the boys' skills and knowledge such that their GCSE and, in some cases, A-Level study appears as a natural extension of what has gone before. In the youngest years, the focus is on core literacy skills while embedding a love of reading, inspired by the wonderful resources of the Spawforth Library. From Second to Fourth Form, students are exposed to increasingly complex texts and are supported in engaging with these in an increasingly critical, analytic way. Some highlights are: Shakespeare (of course!), Burns, When the Guns Fall Silent and the poetry of the First World War, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The Department regards the teaching of oracy as central to good English teaching. Historically, we have offered the ESB Qualification. This is currently being reviewed but giving students opportunities to present, recite, read-aloud and, most of all, question is a cornerstone of our practice.
Activities
In addition to external competitions (e.g. 500 Words short stories, Young Writers Poetry, Mini-Saga and Short Story Competitions,The Staton Essay Prize), the Department also administers four School Prizes with Pringle (I, II, III), Junior (IV, Shell, V), and Senior (LVI, UVI) categories for each:
- The Kingsley Darling Verse Prize for verse composition (first awarded 1934)
- The Edwards Reading Prize for reading aloud (first awarded 1944)
- The School Fiction Prize for prose fiction (first awarded 1998)
- The Peyrebrune Declamations for public recitation (first awarded 1999) (linked to the Shakespeare Speaking Initiative in IV Form)
The winning entry for the School Fiction Prize is published in the School magazine, as are the winning poems in each category of the Kingsley Darling Verse Prize.
We have partnered with the Edinburgh Bookshop to provide opportunities for author visits and our termly ‘Bag-a-Book’ bookfairs are always popular. The department supports the Spawforth Librarian with the School Book Groups, each of which meets twice a term to discuss a range of titles.
We frequently take boys to the theatre, supplementing the Arts Programme with visits to productions of particular educational value. The annual Lower Sixth trip to Stratford-upon-Avon celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2019: this excursion not only provides an opportunity to watch two RSC productions, but also brings to life the historical context in which Shakespeare lived and worked.
A Morning in the English Department
Academic News
Find out how our first Mandarin Immersion Day went, earlier this week.
Nine students out of this year's Sixth Form cohort to attend interviews for Oxbridge institutions.
A busy Trip to London for our Sixth Form Classical Civilisation students.
Our MerchiSTEAM students tell us more about their incredible trip to Paris, earlier this month.
A summary of our Careers Department's events over the Autumn Term.
After Merchiston's strong performance at A-Levels last week, today marks another greatly anticipated day with the publication of our GCSE results for the V Form. Once again, our students have put in a strong performance across the cohort with a fantastic 47% of all papers graded 9/8/7 and 90% papers graded 9-4.