Regents Review Summer '18

The Regents Review Summer 2018

DEPARTMENTAL NEWS

English

Readathon ‘Read for Good’ is a readathon charity that provides brand new books and storytellers for poorly children in local hospitals. Every student in Year 7 and some Year 8 students have taken part in this term’s readathon! On top of their weekly reading lessons, they were challenged to read as many titles between April and June and gain sponsorship for their efforts. We managed to raise in excess of £500 with Erin Maddock raising the most money.

Saints Foundation Eleven Year 8 students attended the launch of the latest Saints foundation project, which took place at St Mary’s stadium. This saw them compete against other schools in a range of challenges centred around enterprise and football based scenarios. Students were taken on tour of the stadium and enjoyed gaining an insight into the working of our local premiership club. The Saints foundation is a registered charity, which helps a lot of people in the local community. Those taking part in the course will spend the next 8 weeks working with a foundation ‘champion’ from the club on building enterprising skills. What an exciting opportunity!

KS3 English Year 7 have spent the last half term working on an exciting unit on product design. This has seen them exploring how colour psychology works and how marketing companies appeal to target audiences. Following this, students have created their own products and written persuasive ‘Dragon’s Den’ style pitches. Year 8 have been exploring what makes an effective ghost story and how writers build tension

and suspense. They’ve read and analysed short stories including: ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ and ‘The Red Room’, before moving on to writing their own openings. Year 9 are now studying Romeo and Juliet - which is a set text for GCSE English literature. All students have been taught how to closely analyse any given extract from the play and also to explore how characters and themes are presented. They’ve worked hard to deepen their understanding of the relationship between the

text and the context of the play to enable them to strive for the higher grades.

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