Department Reviews
ENGLISH
Wrangling with Examination boards about GCSE marking in English and English Literature seems to have become an almost annual pastime, as we try to ensure that all our pupils get the results they deserve. Although we had seven girls this year who were awarded the top five marks in English Literature, we were forced to ask for more than sixty scripts to be re-marked. As a result, the board instituted a whole centre re-mark of English scripts and, in total, thirty six grades were raised. Despite achieving a record number of A* grades for English, the UC5 girls, in some cases, were still not, in our view, appropriately rewarded for their hard work in English Literature. Sadly, it has now been publicly acknowledged that more ‘subjective’ disciplines, like English, should not expect to be consistently marked! All we can do is continue to draw injustices to the AQA’s attention. It is little comfort that all examination boards seem to be experiencing similar difficulties.
Our AS/A2 candidates continue to excel and be successful in finding places to read English at prestigious universities, even in a very competitive market. Five girls were offered places at Oxford and Cambridge and we have received some very encouraging feedback from admissions’ tutors.
Debating and Public Speaking continue to thrive at CLC: in April, former UK public speaking champions, Claire Brand and Lauren Daum, became England champions in the finals of the ESU Mace National Debating Competition. This is particularly gratifying as they were the only female finalists. The pair also reached Finals Day in both the Oxford Union and Cambridge Union competitions. Carrying off so many trophies in the past three years has sparked a keen interest in debating in all year groups. The Dorothea Beale Debate between College and Guild, now an annual whole school event, is anticipated with great enthusiasm and the younger girls are certainly not reticent about expressing their opinions from the floor.
Departmental Saturday activities enable us fruitfully to extend the girls’ experience of both writing and the oral aspects of the subject. LC1 and LC2 had their horizons broadened when South African born novelist Beverley Naidoo came to talk about her writing in October. She illustrated her talks with photographs of the apartheid era in which she grew up. The girls were particularly impressed to meet someone who had been imprisoned for her anti-racist beliefs. In spring, the world renowned storyteller Ben Haggarty made a welcome return to College and had even the most cynical lower college girls, who thought they had long outgrown the age of being ‘told stories’ by an adult, mesmerised by his narratives and his arresting way of delivering them. The LC3 ‘Cut and Thrust’ stage combat activity, in which the girls are given tips for staging the fights in Shakespeare’s plays in a practical workshop, has become a popular yearly fixture.
We continue to support our study of Shakespeare in the classroom wherever possible, by theatre visits and sessions such as the performance workshops led by Bristol Old Vic youth theatre on our GCSE text Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare Study days on AS and A2 texts, delivered by Dr Pamela Mason, always greatly assist revision by offering stimulating new angles on the plays.
Our departmental magazine, Imprint, now also available on the website, acts as an attractive showcase for the girls’ creative writing. As our celebrations for National Poetry Day each autumn now includes a poetry competition, LC girls are soon able to see their work in print. During Creative Arts Week in June two writers, Alicia Stubbersfield and Jim Friel, ran creative writing workshops for LC2 girls, which produced some fascinating work for display and publication.
At a more senior level, the SFC2 girls were thrilled to hear Professor of Creative Writing and poet Paul Farley read from both his work and other people’s, and talk in an inimitable way about the crafting of material. Visits such as these, in conjunction with the Saturday morning book group and the opportunity to attend talks at The Cheltenham Festival of Literature in October, are ways of keeping the girls’ interest in literature alive, even if they are not studying English Literature as an AS/A2 level subject. We are looking forward to embracing the IB next term as literary study is an essential component of the course, so we shall have more Sixth Form girls than ever studying English.
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