English

We have had an eventful two years in the English department, but two years that have been full of creativity, excitement, and our favourite activity… lots and lots of reading! With five book clubs now up and running in the English department, to stand alongside the many book clubs offered by our fantastic library, some might say there has never been a better time to stay inside, hunker down, and curl up with a good book. Our Creative Writing Society continues to go from strength to strength, and 2020 saw the establishment of the first English department magazine, Emu, celebrating writing across the school.We’ve enjoyed National Poetry Day each year, resulting in some thought-provoking and imaginative haiku from our Lower School students, and Senior Literary Society has also seen an array of fascinating guest speakers enlighten our Sixth Formers, with topics ranging from ‘Black Poetry through a Psychoanalytic Lens’ to the plays of Harold Pinter.

Staff Changes

I was proud to step into the role of Head of English in September 2019 and have been consistently amazed at the dedication, commitment and innovation of the English department: Emanuel pupils are an extremely lucky bunch! Internal promotions and our expanding school allowed space for further members of the team, and we were thrilled to welcome Mr Clarke in September 2019, Mr Maskell in September 2020 and Mr Morley in September 2021.

We were saddened to see our Deputy Head of English, Mr Healy, move to Exeter in January 2021, but gladly welcomed Dr Donn to the team: a lover of American literature and modern poetry, she has brought new life to our curriculum with exciting new schemes of work. New life arrived in other ways, and the last few years have also seen Ms Johnson, Ms Windsor and myself on maternity leave. A huge thank you to Dr Donn and Mr Clarke, who stepped into the Head of Department and Deputy Head of Department roles respectively, and to Ms Graham for providing maternity cover.

Creative Writing

We are also encouraging our pupils to seek out opportunities beyond the framework of our school. For the first time, a group of creative writing enthusiasts from Year 10 have prepared to enter the George Orwell Youth Prize, writing pieces exploring the climate crisis. Our Creative Writing Society also continues to meet regularly to share ideas and discuss each other’s work. To keep this fantastic momentum going, we have also launched the Peter Hendry Poetry Prize to find our 2022 Emanuel School Poet Laureates. Last year’s pilot Poet Laureate competition for the Lower School was such a success with pupils that we are now expanding to the whole school community. Peter Hendry was the Headmaster of Emanuel from 1959 to 1984 and a superb English teacher with a passion for poetry. The Peter Hendry Poetry Prize, named in his honour, is awarded to one pupil in the Lower School, one in the Middle School and one in the Upper School for a poem of their own writing on any topic they choose. Each winner will also receive the honour of being their section’s Poet Laureate for 2022-23, writing poems to celebrate key events in the academic year.

Graphic Novel Club

The Year 6/7 ‘Graphic Novel Book Club’ from Dr Donn read Thornhill by Pam Smy and Ye by Guilherme Petreca. The students especially enjoyed Thornhill, a creepy and mysterious story set in an abandoned orphanage. They were fascinated by how the author used visuals and text to tell two stories that seem completely different at first, but then start to get more and more entangled. There was also lots of discussion about how the motif of dolls (especially when they’re too life-like) can create uncanny effects — a fantastic but spine-chilling conversation!

Visiting the Globe Theatre

Diversifying the Curriculum

Diversity in the English curriculum is a much-debated issue, and one that we feel especially passionately about at Emanuel. Master works of African American Literature — including Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God — have long been part of our GCSE and A Level curriculum. However, we have also been busy revising our Lower School curriculum so that it now better reflects the fascinating diversity of literary voices; Marjane Satrapi’s 2000-2004 graphic memoir Persepolis and the classic Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D.Taylor are just two examples of texts which have proven especially inspirational in English lessons. Student representatives in the Archer Group gave us invaluable feedback on these curriculum revisions, and we are currently exploring how to contextualise and critically disrupt a canonical text that has proven contentious in recent years: John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

Dr

In March 2020, a lucky group of A Level pupils had the opportunity to visit the Globe Theatre to experience Shakespeare in performance. City of London School hosted the pupils for two inspiring lectures about Shakespeare’s theatre, and the group then walked over to the Globe to participate in an interactive performance of Hamlet, in which the actors took direction from pupils to show how scenes could be interpreted in different ways.

Emu

Perhaps the co-curricular highlight of 2021 was the publication of EMU Mr Maskell led a group of truly talented artists, writers and editors to put together a professional first issue of this magazine showcasing the best and brightest writing Emanuel School has to offer. A full feature on Emu can be found on pages 26-27.

Poetry Slam 2020

The hugely enjoyable Emanuel School Poetry Slam was a victim of the pandemic, so we savour the memories of the pre-Covid Slam of February 2020. Students in Years 6-9 battled it out with their spoken word skills, performing poems in response to the theme ‘My World’. The competition was as tough as ever, with students tackling topics as diverse as climate change, grief, illness, family identity and social unity. Joining us on the day was poet extraordinaire, Mr Gee, who led a series of poetry writing workshops for Years 8 and 9 in the day, before performing his own poem ‘Go Tell It to the Mountain’ and judging the competition in the evening.

As always, it was a close call, but the final winners for each year group were Eva (6EKM), Manasseh (7AFH), Emil (8AFK) and Amelia (9MAH). The audience was particularly impressed with the Year 6 and 7 competitors, who held their own against older students with their confidence and use of movement in their performances, but the overall winner, and recipient of the Slam trophy, was Amelia. A huge congratulations to all the performers and winners!

Poetry By Heart 2022

This year, the poetry enthusiasm was channelled into the national competition ‘Poetry by Heart’. In March 2022, all our Lower School pupils participated in classroom heats, performing a truly astonishing range of lyrical texts with real originality, empathy and flair. We celebrated our strongest performers during the school finals on March 9th, and selected frontrunners from Years 6 to 9. Representing Year 6 were Lorenzo (6USC) and Charlie (6USC), and in Year 7 were Aoife (7JRS) and Lauren (7PM) For Year 8, the finalists were Eva (8SMR) and Oliver (8RDC) and for Year 9, Suzie (9HLM) and Manasseh (9HEC) All the finalists recorded their performances in our film studio and submitted their entries to the national competition. All the entries were commended or highly commended and received praise from the judges for their composure, emphasis and emotional understanding of the poems. We look forward to competing again next year!

GCSE Book Club

In the GCSE Book Club, run by Mr Maskell, Year 10 and Year 11 students discussed a variety of classic and contemporary works by authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, and Mark Haddon. Students were encouraged to think about the context, language, and legacy of each book, considering what makes a work of literature important or influential. Each week brought a new and exciting debate and Year 11 students in particular were excited about the introduction this provided for their A Level course.

Year 9 Book Club

The Year 9 Book Club was established by Miss McCloud upon the descent of our third lockdown as a way for our pupils to continue connecting and communicating about their love of books. Year 9 pupils had the opportunity to read and discuss a variety of novels, such as Emma by Jane Austen, The Cousins by Karen M. McManus and The Last by Hanna Jameson. Pupils relished being able to discuss novels over Zoom and took to each new book with enthusiasm! It was a pleasure to discuss such a wide range of literature with this engaged group.

Lower-Sixth Lit Club

This Lit Club of 2020-21, run by Ms Routledge and Dr Donn, read a number of novels, from Donna Tartt’s The Secret History to Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. A particular favourite was Citizen, a collection of prose poems on the theme of racism, exploring microaggressions and the role language plays in racist structures. Students engaged in an interesting and passionate discussion about how language, as a way of addressing the reader, can show a way out of these patterns of bias and enjoyed considering the emotional side of Rankine’s prose poems.

Upper-Sixth Lit Club

The Upper-Sixth Lit Club of 2019-21 holds a special place in Ms Routledge’s heart as her first ever Emanuel School book club. Together we read the classics, the prize winners, the best sellers and everything in between. From Virginia Woolf to Kiley Reid, we have discussed genre, style, sexism, racism and given our own editing critiques. Highlights for the students would surely be meeting in Mr Milne’s office to discuss Pat Barker’s Regeneration (complete with sugary treats) and for Ms Routledge would be one student picking a book club read, The Color Purple, as one of her A Level coursework texts.

Senior Book Club

Run by Mr Maskell, Senior Book Club meets every fortnight to discuss compelling works of literature from a variety of authors. Composed of pupils from mainly Years 11 and the Lower-Sixth, Senior Book Club is a society that nurtures a love for literature and opens eyes to new readings and interpretations of both novels and plays. The chosen text is read in advance, so pupils come prepared to share their experience of the work and spark creative discussion. In the last year, there has been a focus on contemporary novels such as Mohsin Hamid’s imaginative Exit West, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s Purple Hibiscus and Sally Rooney’s latest — Beautiful World,Where Are You. Members have also enjoyed delving into 19th and 20th Century drama such as Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. For anyone wishing to step into the literary world, Senior Book Club is the doorway.