Year 7
As girls move into the Senior School, we seek to increase the sophistication of their reading and writing and help them to acquire a critical voice, as well as re-enforcing their creative enjoyment of literature.
Girls create and develop their own book groups, refining and monitoring their literary responses. In the first term all students will study A Christmas Carol and Black Harvest and look at a range of ghost literature; as well as learning about the principles of analysis of literature (both poetry and prose) and beginning to assess how a writer creates effect through language and form.
Girls will study a novel and a range of poetry from two anthologies: The Song Atlas and Painting with Words. Texts available for study throughout the year include My Family and Other Animals, Little Women, A Cue for Treason and Warrior Scarlet. Girls will also learn about the history of the language, with an exploration of Middle English texts; Gawain and The Green Knight and Chaucer's The General Prologue.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is studied in the Summer term. The development of grammatical skills is embedded into students' study throughout the year.
Girls will also learn library skills through a library lesson once every two weeks.
The Year 6-7 Book Group is an important extra-curricular resource for girls to develop their literary tastes.
My Garden
The trees sway back and forth in the breeze, their gnarled branches trembling as if with anger. As the dark clouds creep across the sky, covering the land like a velvet quilt, the trees’ shadows grow menacingly longer, getting nearer and nearer. Suddenly, the wind whistles louder, pounding at the windows as he desperately searches for the sanctuary of home, slamming the garden gate on his way out. The trees perform their final shudder, releasing an eruption of leaves slowly dancing to the ground to settle as a golden carpet. The sun graciously glides from behind her fluffy hiding place and beams down on the Earth, every flower bursting open to stare at her in awe, the miniature army of insects stopping to gaze up. The floral smell is now so strong you can almost taste it. But that’s only my garden.
Martha Morgan.
My Garden
As I step into my garden, the soggy wet leaves on the ground squelch as I walk over them. The garden is a prime example of the harsh effects of winter. The trees, once heavily laden with fruit are now skeletal. My boots leave an impression o marking my presence in the somewhat deserted garden. The flowers once blooming and cheerful like a thousand smiling suns, now just crumbly earth. I watch carefully as under a rotted piece of wood I see a troupe of minute, microscopic millipedes hardly bigger than my fingernail, and army of them in their dolls’ house town. As I walk on through the garden a frog jumps out suddenly in front of me, its scaly skin reminiscent of ancient creatures from days gone by and its eyes sorrowful and scared.
Alicia Parkes
My Garden
As soon as I stepped out of the door, the cold, crisp contrast with the warm house I had just left hit me, shocking me so much I nearly stepped back in. Whilst winter still enveloped the garden, spring was starting to poke its bright face through the icy chill. A host of daffodil shoots, like the spears of a miniature army lurking just beneath the soil, poked up courageously into the harsh light. A robin hopped impatiently near as a worm appeared on its daily rounds and extended its wings to swoop down onto the wriggling worm like a bargain-hunter on a brittle brown branch, heavy with tiny green buds clinging bravely to the lifeless branch like barnacles to a boat. Below was a compost heap, in which a small tunnel was carved an entrance into the home of a hedge-hog, fast asleep beneath the warmth of its compost blanket, soon to emerge into the warm spring sunlight.
Chloe Johnson
