Jack Petchey SpeakOut Competition

We are proud to take part in the Jack Petchey SpeakOut competition annually and each year we have made it to the regionals, competing alongside other schools in the borough. Saheba in Year 10 represented our school and did a brilliant speech titled 'Why we should all be feminists'.  This year, 30 students were trained by a professional public speaker. This helped them to develop the skills and confidence needed for oracy and presenting in front of an audience - skills which will be invaluable not only for their GCSE English Speaking and Listening exam but also in later life. 

Year 7s have greatly enjoyed studying October, Octoberthis term. In the second half of the term, students wereable to explore the novel's themes more deeply as they learnt to make inferences and write analytically. It took a lot of hard work and practice and we couldn't be more prouder of them! 

Over the course of two weeks, as homework Year 8s collated a number of items for their 'Shoebox of Memories', which they filled with momentos that Alem Kelo, the protagonist of the novel Refugee Boy, would have collected on his journey to seek asylum in the UK. As well as testing their understanding of the novel, students were able to empathise with refugees and learn about the hardships they go through.

'Year 9 have been working on the topic of Dystopian Fiction this term and recently Miss Mistry's Year 9 class drew inspiration from the dystopian story 'High-Rise' by J.G.Ballard. Students used the plot of living in luxurious flats that turn into something quite horrible and menacing. With this in mind the students are creating their own ideal, luxurious flats and are currently a work in progress- please see below the image....Well done so far 9EN2!' 

The Year 10 activity outlined below was inspired by a workshop that Mrs Ashcroft attended at the Pixl conference, run by Ben Crystal, an actor and producer best known for adapting Shakespeare plays. This injected new life into our Macbeth lessons and we learnt just how adaptable and ingenious Shakespeare really was.

The Bard directed our own adaptation of Macbeth through his deliberate use of meter. We counted each syllable and joined the dots, ending up with a sort of life line which dictated Macbeth's feelings and emotions and vastling improved students' acting skills!

We would like to say a big well done to Year 11 for completing their first set of mocks! Students have worked really hard to prepare for Literature Paper 1 and Language Paper 1, some of which had multiple sessions of intervention per week from dedicated teachers throughout the term. 

While Year 12 have been immersed in the roaring 20's world of The Great Gatsby, Year 13 have been fighting the patriarchy and rooting for the survival of Offred in The Handmaid's Tale, which they have been comparing to Feminine Gospels. We'd like to wish them the best of luck in their upcoming mocks!