Sydenham HighLIGHTS Autumn 2021
Hitting the ground running this term, the Drama department has already announced our Senior Play, ‘Education, Education, Education’ which is an upbeat, chaotic and irreverent comedy. The setting is Wordsworth Comprehensive School, May 1997. Tony Blair has won the election, Katrina and the Waves have won Eurovision and the year 11 have muck up day. What could possibly go wrong? The production is for years 10-13 and will be performed in February. Our Lower School production, which is open to years 7-9, will be announced later in the year and the performance will be staged in May. In addition to this, there will also be the ever popular Technical Theatre Club and Drama Club. Year 7 have had a busy start to secondary school life and heard from Sita Brahmachari about the inspiration for her book When Secrets Set Sail as part of a UK-wide online author event. A copy had previously been gifted to each of them on induction day to read over the summer as part of the Book Clubs in Schools transition event. Seven hundred pupils across the country responded to polls about their favourite character in the book, whether they had family from another country and whether they believed in ghosts, as Sita shared her family’s migration story and her journey to becoming an author. GP and mother of three, Attiya Khan, was another author visit who came in and spoke to year 9 about her debut YA book Ten Steps to Us and her journey to becoming a published author. Attiya spoke about being resilient to rejection, believing in yourself and not giving up when she was looking for a publisher for her book. Ten Steps to Us is a story of romance, bullying, frenemies, social media trolling, family expectations, religious commitment and finding your place in the world. Meanwhile, year 10 received an author visit of their own from Femi Fadugba who also shared some of the experiences that helped him to write his game changing, space and time defying, debut YA thriller, that is soon to be a major Netflix movie starring Daniel Kaluuya. The Upper World is set in South-East London with Sydenham High being one of only eight schools he visited as part of a school tour to celebrate the novel’s publication. We also welcomed Milou, a red fox labrador, to the school, who joined Mrs Woodcock for Google Meets amongst other things, whilst taking time out to visit pupils at lunch and break time. Milou, in fact belongs to Mrs Evans, Head of Year 9, and he was a great hit with our pupils and hopefully will make a return visit soon.