Loving Literature

My first year at Exeter School has been nothing short of amazing. I absolutely love teaching here with this incredibly talented team of staff and children; and I am so proud to lead English and drama in the junior school.

by MISS COX

his year has had many

Twonderful events. The first was National Poetry Day and the theme was Vision. This inspired the children to write about the world and their concerns for the environment; as well as more abstract ideas. The standard of writing was outstanding and it was very difficult to judge and choose the following Poet Laureates:

UPPER TWO Isobel Cann; James Biddick; Luke Westley

LOWER TWO James Warhurst; Isabelle Creek; Iris Bone; Chloe Jenkins

UPPER ONE Emma-Rose Swana; Oscar Shields

FORM ONE Gregory Amiet; Wilfred Collard, Elena Greenwood

The next big event was Youth Speaks. Every child in Upper Two prepared a speech in teams of three on a topic of interest to them. The finalists spoke in front of Ms Simpson, Mrs Van, and Mr Brough on the following subjects: • Are the Covid restrictions around sporting events too strict? • Should our education system be amended to fit in more with the modern world? • Are we spending too much time on social media? • Why explore space rather than research our own planet?

The winning team consisted of: Chairperson: Eva van Schalkwyk. Speaker 1: Evie Handley. Speaker 2: Alice Kotting. Vote of Thanks: Isobel Cann.

All the children were very impressive, persuasive, and entertaining speakers.

In March, the children enjoyed the wonderful activities led by Mrs Hardy and Mrs Handley in the junior school for World Book Day. The loo roll competition was a great event, leading to so much creativity; as was the Through The Keyhole idea of peeping inside a work of literature and illustrating what you might see there. Throughout the year, Mrs Hardy has encouraged all the children to film themselves giving book reviews, which has only added to the love of literature in our school.

It’s been very busy inside the classrooms, with too many things to list; but here are a few highlights: FORM ONE Form One have created wonderful similes and metaphors, proudly displayed on the walls of their beautiful classrooms. They have studied the Mousehole Cat and Fantastic Mr Fox, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, and Zeraffa Giraffa. This term they embarked upon the crosscurricular topic of The Romans. They have completed work based on their book study: Escape from Pompeii by Christina Balit. They have enjoyed writing diary entries, forming conscience alleys in drama, and exploring vocabulary. The skills they have acquired have been employed in their narrative writing, newspaper reports, and Roman research using topic boxes from the School Library Service.

Form One have also undertaken a challenge to solve the Case of the Missing Toga, requiring them to use their grammar and punctuation knowledge to collect the clues. They have studied the picture book Flotsam exploring character descriptions and sea pollution.

I was lucky enough to observe both a Form One and an Upper One lesson. The teaching and learning that took place was outstanding and the quality of the children’s work in their books – and the progress they had made – was a real cause for celebration.

UPPER ONE Upper One have very much enjoyed studying Michael Morpurgo’s The Butterfly Lion. It has allowed them to use all their English skills to carry out book investigations, formulate persuasive travel brochures for South Africa, summarise and re-write chapters from the book, and use dialogue to move their stories along whilst engaging the reader. They have used metaphors and similes to add sparkle to their writing, and have made good use of their reading comprehension toolkit. They loved performing soliloquies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Upper One have also conducted an in-depth study of the movement of dragons, and their cultural significance in different societies.

LOWER TWO Lower Two have studied narrative poetry, which led to writing imbued with figurative language and imagery, and taught the children to identify specific figures of speech within poetry. They studied Boy by Roald Dahl which provided them with plenty of opportunities to laugh at dark humour, recall events from their own lives, write a little about happy memories, and create good and evil character stereotypes.

UPPER TWO The Upper Two children studied, then performed The Tempest. The talents of professional storyteller Katy Cawkwell commenced our study, and brought the play to life in front of the children. It was a joy to work with Upper Two throughout the process of learning the language and becoming the characters; and to be entertained by the narrators’ improvisations in rehearsals. Miss Buckingham and I thoroughly enjoyed preparing the children for their three performances; and we were very proud of every child’s energy, talents and commitment. Speaking of Miss Buckingham, she has been my right-hand woman throughout the year, working with different drama clubs at lunchtimes and after school; choreographing dances, and also having great fun with drama games.

This term, Upper Two also completed a unit of study on The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce. It is the story of two brothers from Mongolia who arrive in a school in Bootle.

The Upper Two children researched Mongolia and presented their findings in a variety of ways. They wrote about their own summer term in Upper Two – including their brilliant residential - using pretend Polaroids like those in the book. They used the novel as a starting point for topical discussion. They have also been inspired to write their own story of an eagle hunt.

It’s been a year of brilliant creativity, lots of fun, happiness, and friendship. We are all thrilled to be back in the classroom together, working hard, learning lots of new skills, loving books, and being creative. I cannot wait to see what the next academic year brings.

In the words of one of our Upper Two Poet Laureate, James Biddick:

What a year we’ve all had Lots of fun times, but also some bad We missed our friends as we learnt from home, And at times we all felt a little alone, But we laughed together over Google Meet, We were still a class, just not sitting at the next seat, We spent time with our families, We walked every day, And when we returned to the classroom, We all said hooray! We ran around the playground, We kicked a ball, We chatted and laughed and forgot about it all. We ate and we studied and enjoyed our return And next year we will begin again, the start of a new term.

GO FORTH AND READ!

Fourth Formers have been competing to take part in the National Reading Champions Quiz.

Each form took part during their tutor time to decide who would represent the school in the south west heat. Well done to 4DoDw who were the winning form out of five.

Two teams got all the questions right and qualified for online competition on 18 May. Librarian Mrs Jackson said it was great to see all the Fourth Form taking part in the quiz with such enthusiasm.

“It was a fun event to showcase pupils’ knowledge and love of reading. Congratulations to all participants.”