School_Matters_Issue_35

6

SUMMER READING PROJECT We challenged Senior 9 pupils to read as many books as possible through the Summer Term, around a theme of their choice. The English Faculty was hugely impressed with the pupils’ enthusiasm and engagement with this term-long initiative. Topic choices were diverse, ranging from Black Lives Matter, to music, animals, war, comedy, thrillers and romance. Pupils also completed a series of reading challenges, such as following authors on social media, building a ‘book nook’ at home, creating an artistic response to a story, writing a musical score, and even baking a cake to represent the narrative! All pupils had the chance to win prizes: the more books they read, the more prizes up for grabs. At the end of the term, pupils submitted portfolios of work containing their reading challenges. We were bowled over by the quality and creativity of submissions.

Our panel of judges had the tough decision of choosing the winners. Well done, Jack Benson, Lydia Cartwright, Darcy Coleman, Hannah Lee, Ciara Murphy and Ema Velasco. Igor Elmanov received the ‘Challenge Award’ for challenging himself the most during the project, reading sophisticated titles around the topic of war and strategy including San Zu’s The Art of War , to which he responded by writing a book review and building a Lego construction to represent the themes of the text. After reading Brian Orend’s War and Political Theory , he had a discussion with a friend about pacifism and wrote a record of it. The prize for the Outstanding Reading Portfolio went to Alina Ahmad who truly impressed. She read an astounding 12 books, all on the topic of race, from Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give , to Robin Walker’s Black History Matters , Becoming by Michelle Obama, and Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam. In addition, the class that read the most titles were rewarded with a very special literary tea party at the end of term, at which they shared their favourite reads with their peers. The theme had to be ‘Harry Potter’! Congratulations to our prize winners and, indeed, to all S9 pupils. The English Faculty has truly enjoyed following your reading journey Dr Anna Cairns, Head of English

Katrina, centre, with runners up Marissa and Suhani

LOCKED DOWN POETS

Deep within the Ibstock Place School archives lies an intriguing anthology of poems, written by pupils who were evacuated from the Froebel Demonstration School, Kensington (as IPS was formerly known) to Dennison House of Little Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, during the Second World War. In March 2020, the children of Ibstock Place School were faced with their own ‘evacuation’ of sorts, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused schools to shut and pupils to learn remotely from home. During the second lockdown in 2021, the English Faculty ran a House competition, encouraging pupils to write poems about their lockdown experiences. Katrina Shone in Senior 8 was awarded First Prize, while Suhani Sethi, S7 and Marissa Merxhani, S9 were chosen as runners up. Montefiore pupils gained the most points for their House. The English faculty enjoyed reading pupils’ creative responses, some humorous, some sad, and many hopeful. Their work has now been turned into an anthology, a companion to that which was written by the poets of Little Gaddesden.