English clubs: activities for everyone

There is now a wide range of co-curricular activities on offer to any student wishing to write, read and explore various, exciting English opportunities. These include A Study In Purple, FemBookSoc, the Young Reporter Scheme, Book Clubs and Creative Writing Society. Here, we take a brief look at these last three.

The Young Reporter Scheme is a fantastic programme in partnership with Newsquest that offers students in Years 10, 11, 12 and 13 an opportunity to write and create articles that can be published on a real online platform. The scheme offers students the chance to enter into five different categories including breaking news, event, interview, sport and photography. Submitted articles are judged and the top 33 are invited to an awards ceremony to celebrate and commend their work. Not only does this programme provide young people with a public platform and the chance to win an award, but it also enables students to develop their writing skills and learn more about journalism and publishing.

Alongside the listed categories, the Young Reporter Scheme also offers a wide range of opportunities and events available to all entrants. These include theatre and sports tickets, masterclasses, interviews and so much more. As well as providing engaging content for articles, these opportunities allow students to interact more with their local community.

The programme runs in the months of September through to April of each academic year, in which entrants are expected to write eight articles (one per month). Every article written by each student is then published directly on to Newsquest's online newspapers. Watch out for an email launching next year's scheme!

The Year 9 Book Club members are enjoying reading Rebecca, a favourite novel of many of the readers. They have been discussing the novel's use of gothic conventions and its connections with Jane Eyre. Members describe the Book Club as a 'lovely community' and find it helpful in developing their analytical skills. Year 9 Book Club meets Fridays, Lunch 2 in G1; Year 7 & 8 Book Club meets on Mondays at 8am in the Library.

In Creative Writing Society, we've been busy exploring the use of imaginative and abstract story prompts and the plethora of ideas that one can generate from a simplistic starting point! We've had some fun compiling stories together, where each person is given a prompt, and the stories are switched every couple of minutes between writers. This has created some hilarious, some absurd and some highly insightful short stories, full of twists and turns as each person leaves their own individual artistic impression on the narrative.

Next term, get excited for some themed weekly sessions where we will start by looking at Fantasy novels and how they are crafted. If you love writing, or find yourself fizzing with ideas, stories or even rogue trains of thought, then come along Thursdays, Lunch 1!(There could be snacks...)