After the “Book Week” success, last week has been just as busy with some very exciting events in the English department!
On Tuesday the Year 8s went to The Globe Theatre in London to participate in a Shakespeare workshop based on the play ‘Macbeth’ and even got the opportunity to perform on the stage there. They worked together to developed their acting and performing skills whilst also familiarising themselves with the play itself, which will be beneficial to them later on as it is a GCSE text.
As well as this, last week the year 7, 8 and 9 poetry finalists took part in a ‘Poetry by Heart’ competition where they performed a piece of poetry of their choice to the English teachers and English Senior Prefects. With some wonderful performances all around, the winners were as follows: Thomas in Year 7, India in Year 8, and Ben H in Year 9. The overall winner of these being Ben H with a brilliant performance of ‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1792-1822
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Emilie G, English Prefect