Langley’s Christmas Traditions 2022

By Elizabeth Baptiste

The Christmas spirit at Langley

School was palpable last year. The Christmas tree in the foyer sparkled with lights and colourful baubles. A member of the newspaper club has been talking to year

9.

Students and teachers on how they spent their Christmas holidays. The results from both students and teachers have been amazing! Here are some people and here is how

Sophia in 9U opens stockings with her family and goes to church on Christmas Eve. Also, displayed in her house, every year, she has a real Christmas tree.

Meanwhile, Amelia in 9G puts up her Christmas tree in the frst week of December and she goes to church on Christmas day and has a big Christmas dinner afterwards with her family and friends. Jasmine in 9G has explained that she always wakes up extra early on Christmas day!

The students of Langley School were really excited last year and here are some of the traditions that were they spent their Christmas! included.

Imogen in 9S has described how she decorated the tree in the last weekend of November.

Elizabeth in 9E has a long list of traditions including role playing the nativity story every Christmas eve, dancing round the Christmas tree to a traditional song with mini presents for each person in age order, and baking Christmas cookies and Lily in 9K bakes gingerbread on Christmas eve.

In 9E, Bella has explained how she had a great time with her family with her annual lucky draw.

The Christmas spirit was full of excitement for the teachers too! The head teacher Mrs Thorpe boxes on Christmas Eve with pyjamas and Christmassy things! Go out for lunch on Christmas day with family!

By Aoife McNamara and Sophia Rose

Year 9 Noughts and Crosses Trip

On Wednesday 16th November 2022, Year 9 students visited The Alexander Theatre in Birmingham to watch Noughts and Crosses live. Pupils had been reading the play in drama lessons, and both analysing and re-enacting a multitude of diferent scenes. It was a highly enjoyable evening, and both Blackman’s society of opposing racial power struggle. It was interesting to see a world that reversed racial stereotypes and supremacy - where black people who were represented as Crosses, ruled over white people who were represented as Noughts. Seeing the scenes we had recreated brought to life really inspired us, while demonstrating a life pursued on stage. We have received a wide range of reviews following the performance, from students across Year 9, but have included some of our favourites below: students and staf loved watching it. Split into two halves, we followed along the dual narrative of the protagonists Sephy and Callum, in Malorie

‘I loved the amazing performance and their choreography for the shops exploding! It inspired me for my own re-enactment of the play’s scenes in Drama and gave me loads of new ideas.’

- Amelia Giles 9G

‘In my opinion, I felt the drama production was a really incredible trip as it taught me a lot about controversial topics like racism, terrorism, death, imprisonment and that has inspired me to be a better person.’

- Abi Williams 9G

‘I think it was a really interesting and engaging performance. It dealt with some really key issues that are relevant to all of us. It was a good opportunity for our students to see how efectively you can take a play from a page to the stage.’

- Mrs Aserie: Acting Head of Drama

Overall, the Noughts and Crosses play was a really fun and interesting trip that inspired many of our Drama students. We would love to have the opportunity to go on many more trips like this, and are very grateful to Mrs Aserie, Miss Keogh, Mrs Attenborrow and Mrs Boyle, for organising it.