These girls from 9E2, Joanie, Rowan, Kruthi and Sophie completed a sponsored walk around Wash Common and Enborne. The walk was 6 kilometres and they used an OS map that they had , with help, marked the route on with help. The walk took the girls two hours to complete. We are very grateful to the girls raising money for Evers’ House charity, West Berks MENCAP, as they raised £22! Thank you girls.

Before half term, the music department welcomed guest speaker, Alex Aitken. Alex most recently spent three years as Children’s Musical Director and Cover Conductor on the London Production of Mary Poppins. In addition to his work with schools, Alex is also a Music Director with the National Youth Music Theatre, the Assistant Musical Director at MK Chorale, a coach with The Oxford and Cambridge Singing School and accompanist to The National Children’s Choir of Great Britain, Oxford Pro Musica, and The Military Wives Choir. St Bart’s were therefore delighted that Alex was able to give our students a whole day of his busy schedule.

The morning kicked off with an A Level music conference, during which Alex extended his expertise as an Edexcel examiner to provide some insights and top tips on preparing for the course components. The students were able to ask lots of questions and gained an even deeper understanding of how to aim for the top marks, as well as some useful notes and materials for review in the weeks to come.

During the afternoon session, Alex then lead a conducting workshop with our young conductors. Whilst sharing his own experiences as a West End conductor, Alex inspired and tutored each of our students in developing their own skills to be able to lead and direct the ensemble, which we hope is just the beginning of their conducting journey.

Thank you to Alex for a really inspiring day and to the students for their engagement, contributions and making the most of this valuable opportunity.

The English Faculty are incredibly proud of the range of opportunities we are able to provide for students, both in lessons and beyond the classroom. So far this year, we have particularly focused on integrating technology into lessons – Chromebooks in Years 7-9 and students’ own devices in Year 12.  We have been impressed by students’ enthusiasm for these and their determination to ensure they are being used to enhance their learning. Students across all years seem to appreciate well-organised Google Classrooms and the increased independence that comes from being able to access resources at their own pace, both in lessons and at home.

For the past few years, we have made efforts to ensure our curriculum is diverse and inclusive, so students can see literature both as a ‘window’ and a ‘mirror’. Good stories, whatever their form, should allow us to see other people’s experiences and lives, but should also allow us to reflect our own understanding of the world around us.  As a faculty, this year we have been continuing to integrate short stories from the English and Media Centre’s ‘Diverse Shorts’ collection into our lessons across the school, in addition to teaching the ‘Worlds and Lives’ Cluster to some students in Year 10. In both cases, we have been impressed by how students have engaged and enjoyed the stories and texts.

Once again, there have been lots of opportunities for students beyond lessons. The touring theatre company ‘Box Clever’ has visited the school twice this year, performing and leading workshops on ‘A Christmas Carol’ for Year 8 and ‘Macbeth’ for Year 11. They will come in twice more this term, performing ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for Year 9 and ‘Macbeth’ for Year 10. We took the whole of Year 11 to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see ‘Macbeth’ at the RSC in September. Some of them also went to ‘Poetry Live!’ in Oxford last month – students in Evers and Patterson will do the same in Reading later this month. We brought you news in the last issue of the Year 10 trip to OUP and the Bodleian Library. Some Sixth Form English Language students spent a day in London in October at the British Library and Dr Johnson’s House, and others went to a workshop at the Globe in November to support their English Literature studies.

Our Patron of Reading – Peter Murray – has visited the school twice so far this year. He has spoken to students in Year 8 about his new short story collection ‘The Darker Side of Wight’ and to Year 9 students about his World War One-inspired novel ‘Poppy Warrior’. He will visit the school again in March when we celebrate World Book Day.

Whilst impossible to measure, we are confident that these experiences bring so much to students’ learning and memories of school – these are the things that stick in our minds many years and decades later! It is because we recognise their value that so many members of staff give up their time to make these opportunities possible. If you have a child studying ‘An Inspector Calls’ in Year 10, you will already know that we have plans to take that year group to see the play in Southampton in January 2025.