Recently, Mr Croxford and Ms Efford took 24 English Literature A Level students to St Martin's Theatre in London to see 'The Mousetrap'.

In their second year of the English Literature A Level course, the students study a unit of work called 'Elements of Crime Fiction' where they explore both unseen and set crime texts. 'The Mousetrap' is a classic 'whodunnit', as well as being the longest running show on the West End and has just celebrated its 70th year in the theatre. Therefore, to broaden our students' understanding of the crime genre the A Level team wanted the students to have the opportunity to see this thrilling play, written by the best selling crime author Agatha Christie.

Both students and staff thoroughly enjoyed the show, with only one student having correctly identified the murderer before the big reveal at the end!

This experience will have enabled students to see in action some of the classic tropes and character stereotypes that we have studied in relation to crime fiction and make connections across texts. This will have been really beneficial for the students to be exposed to the genre of crime fiction more broadly and specifically prepared them for the unseen component of the final A Level exams in which they have to analyse the elements of crime portrayed within an unseen extract.