englishified

Year 8 create board games inspired by 'Holes'!

3D board games ahoy with our talented Year 8s! A bespoke, fully-functioning game based on the novel 'Holes' by Louis Sachar.

Well done James of 8G and Charlie of 8M!

Year 9 poetry... restructured

Year 9s experimented with the structure of poems to create rich visual experiences for the reader...

Well done Chloe, Zoe, Ellie, Callan, Beth, Emily A and Emily R!

Year 7s explore Shakespeare and discover a new species... The Quote-opus!

Year 7s use a new tool to explore quotes in-depth!

The Quote-opus helps us to dig deep into even small snippets of text, analysing individual words for their meaning and their effect on the reader - an essential skill for GCSE work (and for a deeper enjoyment of literature!)

Students choose a quote, then use the tentacles of their Quote-opus to focus on different aspects. Their efforts are then shared, discussed and developed into paragraphs of high-quality analysis.

Well done to Ella, Saskia, Kanis Shannon, Kezia

and James from 7B, and Hannah and Zoe from 7R1.

A special mention for Zoe, whose clay-fashioned 'Mrs Quote-opus' keyring received high praise all round!

We love Padlet - WW1 style!

Year 9 students such as Eleanor, Jacob and Emma use the brilliant Padlet.com to create information walls exploring the classic war poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen. Incredible audiovisual guides in one click! Click on the images below to check it out.

Eleanor:

Jacob:

Emma:

And here are some more brilliant efforts by Year 9 students. Click on the names to see the walls!:

Sophia; Chloe; Lynn; Eleanor; Amelia; Emily; Jesse; Anna; Bill

Castle students rock Somerset Story Fest!

A fine evening's work from students from The Castle... taking over the open mic session at Somerset Story Fest's 'Beat It, Speak It, Tell It' event at the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre in March. Thanks to Liv Torc and Michael Loader for hosting!

Using Marginal Gains to explore war poetry!

A great effort by Alice from 9R - using Marginal Gains to prepare for poetry exploration. Well done!

Year 9 war poetry analysis - outstanding writing

Two wonderful examples of writing comparing war poetry. Congrats to Jack from 9M2 and Holly from 9Y - outstanding work!

Year 8 monologues - using 'Marginal Gains' and 'next steps' marking!

While learning how to write and perform monologues, Year 8 students created 'Marginal Gains' wheels to help them assess and actively manage their own progress.

Stage 1
Creating wheels as a class helps to identify, categorise and highlight the criteria that make up successful monologue writing.

Stage 2
Students use their wheels to peer mark a partner's writing - commenting on successful criteria...

Stage 3
...and identifying potential 'marginal gains' that can be made to improve the work.

Stage 4
Students' 'next steps' are to edit their work and make active improvements according to their partner's advice. They also highlight, annotate and evaluate their own work to show specifically where progress has been made.

Following this kind of detailed self- and peer-assessment, students move towards a formally assessed piece of writing.

Well done Ria from 8Y1 for some fantastic work!