English Department

It has been a busy year so far in the English Department with trips and activities being organised for each year group. Following on from the sixth form’s residential visit to Ufton Court back in November, they took part in a one day study course on the set poet Carol Ann Duffy. The poet, Carol Ann Duffy, read and discussed her work. There have also been theatre trips to see “The Duchess of Malfi” and “The Rivals” both of which are A level set texts.

GCSE classes have has the opportunity to go on a day’s poetry conference in London which also focused on examination texts. In addition, some year 10 and 11 students visited the Hexagon to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s performance of The Complete Works of Shakespeare abridged of course!

Year 9 students have also had an opportunity to expand their knowledge of Shakespeare. The English Shakespeare Company were in school for 2 whole days in April, presenting workshops and performing the scenes from “Twelfth Night” which will be tested in Year 9 SATs. Hopefully, this extra experience will benefit them in the exams.

Lower school pupils have also had their taste of the theatre; recently, Year 8 students have been to see “The Hobbit” at Oxford and just before Christmas Year 7 saw a spectacular production of “The Secret Garden” in London.

In addition, there are a number of clubs linked to the English Department which continue to thrive. Reading in particular is popular with The Harry Potter Club, Readathon and the Carneige Book club providing plenty of opportunities!

Once again, the Spring term has been a term of model making and the Modern Studies area has become inundated with medieval Castles, Indian Tepees and medicine bags produced by year 7 and year 8. This year’s visit to Reading museum in January was very successful with year 7 students completing some excellent projects about the Bayeux tapestry as a result of their visits. Year 11, 12 and 13 students are all well into their revision programmes now. Good luck with this we are sure you will be rewarded for your effort in the Summer.

Mr. Hull

This term has seen the introduction of a new trip for our year 7 students. We were invited to take a maximum of 80 students for a visit to Reading Synagogue.

Our visit was a great success. We had a presentation from the Rabbi about Jewish history and our students asked and answered many excellent questions. The group was then split into workshops and we saw displays and demonstrations from different areas of Jewish life.

It was an enjoyable trip for all concerned and the students had the chance to see their term's work come to life.

We look forward to running the trip again on a larger scale