English beyond the classroom

The English Faculty is delighted this year to once again offer pupils lots of engaging experiences beyond the classroom through which they can enjoy and produce texts. In November 40 Y11’s visited the Royal Exchange in Manchester for an amazing workshop where they got to interview the actors who were performing in the Romeo and Juliet matinee the pupils saw in the afternoon. Early in January we also braved the long coach trip to London to see Christopher Eccleston as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol in the lovely Old Vic Theatre. The performance was spectacular and the 45 Y11’s were brilliant. These trips will hopefully also help with the GCSE exams in May/June.

Y10 pupils have also had the opportunity for an English based day out when 45 of them visited St George’s Hall in January for a ‘Poetry Live’ event watching poets from the GCSE Literature anthology read and discuss their poems. The poets gave incredible performances. Pupils had a lovely afternoon and represented school very well.

We also have two after school writing projects currently running in school. First Story, which we have been involved with for several years, provides a writer, a series of workshops and a publication of pupil writing at the end. This year our First Story writers are mainly in Y9. New to school this year is a project we are jointly delivering with Drama and the National Theatre called New Voices. Participants are exploring how to write stage scripts with the support of a professional writer and will also get to see a free theatre performance. Their completed scripts are submitted to the National and one is chosen from submissions all around the country to be staged by the theatre. Fingers-crossed one of our Y10, 11 or 12 pupils is successful!