Honey and Harkness for Year 11

It is a truth universally acknowledged that starting any article connected to Jane Austen with 'it is a truth universally acknowledged' is an unpardonable cliché not to be countenanced. No self-respecting teacher would pollute the shades of Putney with such threadbare trash. So very unlike the quality of comment given by a group of intelligent Year 11s when they met after school to discuss Pride and Prejudice (pictured above).

'Was their discussion really so very fine?' Oh, it had only genius, wit and taste to recommend it. Undoubtedly the twilight Harkness discussion was a fine thing for our girls. 'How so? How could it affect them?' How can you be so tiresome. You must know that they left the discussion with the most thorough knowledge of the novel's themes, the happiest delineation of their varieties and, every so often, they spoke in the best-chosen language. 'What of character? It must be an amusing study.' Oh yes, there is something new to be observed in Austen's characters for ever.

And as if those intellectual pleasures were not already sufficient to gratify even the most fastidious mind, the Drama Studio offered its own enlightenment when Year 11 students assembled after school for a screening of A Taste of Honey (pictured below). They sat in the half‑lit studio with all the attentiveness of seasoned theatregoers, tracing the raw humour and restless melancholy of Delaney's world with admirable acuity. Every sharp exchange, every flicker of tenderness between characters was met with thoughtful silence or delighted murmur. They left the studio with their minds a good deal fuller and their tastes, dare we say, considerably sweeter.

(Picture copyright: Melissa I)