News Category: English

Please click on each link below to read the fantastic poetry written by some of our Key Stage 3 students for this year’s Spotlight Poetry Competition.

The Year 8 CILP Carnegie Awards shadowing group gathered on Wednesday 16th June 2021 to watch the awards live on the official website screened from the British Library.

For Spotlight this year, we have been in search of creative writers in Key Stage 3 to write poems to be performed as Spotlight Drama pieces.

A group of Year 8 students have been enthusiastically reading their way through the eight shortlisted teen fiction books up for this year’s prestigious CILIP Carnegie Medal in our Thursday lunchtime book shadowing group. Along with hundreds of students around the country, our dedicated and voracious Year 8 readers have been voting for their favourites […]

Since half term, the English Department have been teaching Year 7 about persuasive writing skills and the art of constructing a well-researched argument. Pupils have learnt how to form a viewpoint from which to write, the use of rhetorical and persuasive techniques and the impact of their choice of language and style of delivery on an audience.

Chris Bradford, author of the popular ‘Young Samurai’ and ‘Bodyguard’ series of books visited school this week and entertained Years 7 and 8 with his martial arts and bodyguard techniques.

On Wednesday 6th November, our team of Year 8 students won the Lit Quiz 2019 at Bootham School, York. Congratulations! They won the Quiz and the trophy and are now through to the National Finals, which will be held in London on 4th December.

Our Year 12 students had a wonderful writing week in Wales as part of Sixth Form Enrichment.

Since half term, the English Department have been teaching Year 7 about persuasive writing skills and the art of constructing a well researched argument. Pupils have learnt how to form a viewpoint from which to write, the use of rhetorical and persuasive techniques and the impact of  their choice of language and style of  delivery. To mark […]

When the film “Sister Act” was released in 1992, it rapidly became a worldwide box-office hit and helped to cement Whoopi Goldberg’s position as one of the great comic film actors of her generation. Fast-forward fourteen years, and the story of nightclub singer Deloris Van Cartier’s experiences of living in a convent under a witness-protection […]

On Monday 5th November, Mrs Parris and Mrs Roth took a team to Bootham School in York to compete in the Yorkshire heats of the annual International Kids’ Lit Quiz. After a hard-fought battle over ten rounds, our team finished in a very impressive third place out of 14 entries, only missing out on second […]

Congratulations to Maiya Dambawinna on being selected as one of the 15 winners of the Foyle Competition. This is a fantastic achievement given that there were 11,000 entries. Congratulations also for having been invited to take part in the “Contains Strong Language Festival” in a BBC broadcast from Hull that will be aired on National Poetry […]

The annual year 8 inter-form spelling bee was won by 8Y this year, with the individual competition trophy going to Isabel Miles in 8S. In a nail-biting tie-break, Isabel narrowly defeated runner-up Daniel Bryant of 8G. Her winning word was ‘verisimilitude’ – a truly tricky one! All of the students really got behind their teams […]

Chris Bradford was sorry he was unable to meet everyone at St Aidan’s on World Book Day. Anyone who requested a signed copy of his book will still receive the book – watch out for further details. Chris hopes to visit St Aidan’s in the future