English at the Maynard is an exciting part of the school curriculum. It is a core subject, and all students take two GCSEs – English Language and English Literature - in Year 11.

In addition to a rich diet of classic and modern literary, dramatic, non-fiction and media texts, with a variety of stimulating written tasks and plenty of emphasis on wider reading, we offer our students a unique experience that they will never forget. Our students like nothing better than active participation and they really rise to the occasion in collaborative tasks. A recent innovation in Year 9, for example, “The Maynard Apprentice”, was a unit aiming to use the English language in a business context to communicate orally, on paper, and through IT. Inspired by Alan Sugar’s TV programme, the students worked in groups; their task was to devise and promote a business. The adjudicator of the final presentations was so impressed by the standard of work that nobody was fired! We are now looking forward to developing journalistic skills with a view to participating in the BBC School Report media day in the spring term of 2010.

Over the years, we have forged strong links with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, and we regularly invite speakers to come to school to engage our students in lively workshops on the set Shakespearean texts. Year 10, for example, recently worked on Romeo and Juliet with Dr Nick Walton who focused on the effectiveness of Shakespeare’s use of language to indicate Romeo’s development, a topic we designed for a coursework essay. Frequent theatre visits are also a popular and enriching part of our programme.

Sixth Form English Trips 2008-9

This summer we thoroughly enjoyed our seventeenth, possibly most brilliant, Stratford Residential Course. The inspired programme included two scintillating productions - a thought-provoking Taming of the Shrew and the revival of a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream first performed two years ago and brought back to the Stratford stage by popular demand. There was, however, a baffling production of The Merchant of Venice, directed by Tim Carroll, which left us bewildered by its minimalism and general lack of impact. A post-production discussion of “Shrew” with the actor Sean Kearns (Hortensio) was illuminating, while our visits to the properties, a backstage tour of the Courtyard Theatre, and a specially commissioned lecture on Othello lived up to our expectations. A workshop on “Dream” turned into a real dream for some of our students when they discovered that David Tennant was having voice coaching a mere two rooms away from us in an office with a transparent glass door! We travelled back to Exeter on a high after Brenda Leedham’s superb Wig and Make-up demonstration, some of the students still sporting bruises, scars and the “Kensington Gore” that had been liberally applied to their faces in the demo.

Our links with Stratford were reinforced this winter by what has become a hugely popular annual visit from Nick Walton of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. This time he lectured the Sixth Form on the AS & A2 set texts – Much Ado About Nothing and Othello.

Another couple of theatre trips we enjoyed recently were Frantic Assembly, an adaptation of Othello in a modern setting but retaining Shakespeare’s original language (Theatre Royal, Plymouth), and the RSC’s production of Romeo and Juliet in The Courtyard Theatre. Future events already booked are a mainstream production of Othello at the Warwick Arts Centre, and our programme for the 2009 Summer Stratford Course: The Winter’s Tale, Julius Caesar, and As You Like It.

Dr P Le Gallez, Head of English