Scarisbrick Hall School Winter Newsletter 2014

English Faculty Head of Faculty: Mr Roberts The English Department are, as always, very busy completing controlled assessments for Year 11’s English Language and English Literature before the end of Term. Year 10 students will be the last cohort to take controlled assessments and are also busy completing assignments. Our new member of staﬀ, Miss Tinsley, has settled in very well and is working very hard with her classes and enjoying working in her new school. Year 9 have started the new, tougher, GCSE syllabus a year early and made a great start to the more challenging courses in English Language and English Literature. The middle school are now using the new grading system A* to C which has been successful in replacing the old Levels. We are now heading towards the end of term and the traditional Public Speaking competition which I’m sure will be as successful as last year. Last Summer’s extreme reading competition was a great success and we are planning more competitions for the New Year. Reported by: Miss Tinsley This term has been busy. Across English, years 10 and 11 have been working hard on their controlled assessments, ranging from extended reading and creative writing for English Language to the study of Shakespeare worth 25% of the pupils’ ﬁnal grade for the English Literature. Both years have worked really hard to achieve good grades and their commitment to English is commendable. Year 11 will be revising hard over the Christmas holidays for their mock exams in January and their teachers will provide them with extra guidance to help them to succeed. Year 9 have adapted very well to the new 2015 syllabus and are currently reading a Sherlock Holmes novel and learning how to analyse this well in order to achieve a grade C or above this year. Coupled with that, the whole of year 9 have been writing rather extensive stories and have thoroughly enjoyed learning how to craft a story which will enhance their creative writing skills, so well done! This term, year 8 have been studying Of Mice and Men, currently a GCSE text until the end of this year. Pupils across year 8 have enjoyed this progressive and challenging novel with all of its issues and have responded well. They have also been doing lots of spelling work in great preparation for the new SPaG requirements in all subjects from next year. Reading novels and writing autobiographies have been the topics of choice for year 7 with the groups studying Private Peaceful at the moment about a soldier, which links in the centenary for the commencement of WW1. Years 5-6 are currently novel reading, with lots of SPaG practice and their enthusiasm in English is boundless! Across the whole of middle school, all pupils are adjusting well to the new assessment criteria and are preparing themselves for assessment week before Christmas. Extra-curricular wise, our Book Fair for middle school in the form of a pop-up shop in the Great Hall was a great success with many middle school pupils enthusing about their new purchases for independent reading. Towards the end of term there will be a public speaking competition with the theme ‘Don’t get me started’, where pupils can rant about a topic dear to their hearts. Next year, there will be visits to a creative writing workshop in Wigan too for years 9-10, run by awardwinning journalist and author at large Stephen Armstrong and Richard Skinner, Director of the Faber Academy in Bloomsbury, the heart of all budding writers, in London. A successful start to the academic year indeed! Public speaking competition To speak or not to speak?! On the last day of this busy term, Scarisbrick Hall will be holding its annual public speaking event for middle school and college. This is a perennial and popular

Scarisbrick Hall School Winter Newsletter 2014 | Page 25