PUBLISHED 16 September 2021
A lovely first week back has seen the teachers ‘reclaim’ their teaching rooms – freshly painted over the holidays.
Year 10 have new groups, and many have got stuck in to their GCSE texts already: some may have started their Edexcel anthology texts too. Year 11 may have had assignments to hand in from the summer – it’s nice to get those out of the way. Now it’s the teachers’ turn to burn the midnight oil and mark them all.
Year 7 have now been issued with new exercise books with exciting new covers; useful information on the front and back; and feedback spaces at the bottom of the page to allow students to interact with teachers about their work.
Most classes will have new exercise books, and perhaps have written down how important it is to rule off titles, date work and keep the books neat. Let’s see how that has gone by Christmas. Hope is a wonderful thing.
Two Year 9 classes have started ‘Hobson’s Choice’, Harold Brighouse’s classic comedy play, set in a shoe-shop in Salford in the 1880s. Below we see a super illustration by Lily who has imagined the counter and Victorian accoutrements of Hobson’s shop where his three long-suffering daughters spend their days hoping to escape a life of drudgery.
Year 7 have started on the Rainbow Reading awards in the Library with the assistance of the wonderful Mrs Culpan. They are being introduced to the Dewey decimal system and finding their way around. Year 8 are familiar with the system, and it is wonderful to see how many students have done nearly all the colours for a Full Arc award. Many, of course, are on the advanced colours by now. Congratulations to them.
Congratulations go also to the winners of the ‘Star of the Week’ award. Lower school pupils who shine are nominated for an award each week, and this week our congratulations go to Ava, Camilla, Eddie and Johnnie in Year 7 and Keinan in the year above.
It was great to see a good turn-out at the Quiz Club (open to all years on Wednesday lunchtimes), with mixed-age year-groups forming formidable teams. We had three teams competing with each other (a nightmare to score: thank you Mr Bridges). As usual, there was much disputation, guesswork and puzzling out, but a good time was had by all.
Visitors to the English Department will see our Word of The Week. Etymologies are given so we can see how the word developed, and a clear definition is supplied. There isn’t a test on each one but we hope it will help everyone’s knowledge and vocabulary to develop. This week the word is ‘henceforth’
Henceforth, a word will appear each week.
Mr Smyth