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Boys gained an invaluable fresh insight into their GCSE set English texts when a visiting theatre company staged two plays, along with innovative interactive workshops.

The Say Two Productions company performed Romeo and Juliet – a set text for Year 11 pupils – and J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, which Year 10 are currently studying.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “The majority of time in class has been spent looking closely at the linguistic and thematic features of the texts in a purely literary context. It is really important for the boys to be able to appreciate how the literary foundation of the classroom translates into the dramatic sphere of performance if they are to maximize their understanding of the texts.”

In addition to performing the plays, the accompanying workshop programme involved hot-seating – where a character in a play is questioned about his or her background, behaviour and motivation.

“Ordinarily in a performance, the audience and actors are kept separate. On this occasion the workshops led by Say Two were innovative in the way the company really encouraged students to engage in the process of understanding how the page translated to the stage, and the theatrical purpose of Priestley’s and Shakespeare’s writing,” Mr Hyland added.

Jeshvin Jesudas, of Year 10, praised the interactive way in which An Inspector Calls was shown and the hot-seating, which, he said, “helped us to understand how the characters actually felt and gave us a greater and wider understanding of the play”.

The boys were also encouraged to speak out the dialogue from various scenes and to consider the relationship between the characters and how the characters perceived themselves.

For Romeo and Juliet, an interactive staging in costume of the Capulet Ball (Act 1, Scene 5) and of the sword fight between Romeo, Mercutio and Tybalt (Act 3, Scene 1) helped show Romeo’s progression through the text, proving popular with the boys.

Sajeev Karunakaran, of Year 11, said: “It was a very enjoyable performance that expanded my knowledge of the play. I enjoyed the open discussion on the key themes of the play, and the best parts were the interactive activities like the sword-fighting.”

The staging of both plays sought to engender greater insight into the key themes. “The aim was to aid students in their understanding of the set texts as dramatic texts, in addition to simply being academic texts to be studied as literature. Students can hugely benefit in their understanding of the plays if they understand the stagecraft and can anticipate the audience reaction,” added Mr Hyland.

Afterwards, several of the boys gave their views on Say Two’s visit:

• Jai Patel, one of the Year 10 pupils who participated in the workshop for An Inspector Calls: “It was a very detailed insight into the actions and morals of the characters, showing text character development as the play progresses.”
• Umer Saad Rahman, of Year 10: “It clearly showed the development of the characters and helped to improve my understanding. It was very interesting and interactive.”
• Chakshu Chopra, of Year 10: “The performance was extremely engaging, and it portrayed many themes that we learned in class. Watching the performance helped me understand more and really brought the ideas and theories we learned to life.”
• Dylan Domb, of Year 10, enjoyed seeing the twists and turns of the narrative happening right in front of him.
• Jao-Yong Tsai, of Year 10, felt the production helped to show the recurring themes more clearly and to illustrate the deep ironies and contradicting views in the play.
• Ansh Jassra, of Year 10: “I was able to achieve a greater understanding of the interactions between the characters, which, in turn, aided deeper analysis of the stage directions.”
• Daniel Rodrigues, of Year 11, thought that the actors helped the audience further understand the plot and he enjoyed a very “immersive experience”.
• Athiyan Chandramohan, of Year 11, felt the occasion was informative, helping him understand the themes of the play much better.

Year 8 pupil Vaibhav Gaddi is winning plaudits beyond QE with his creative writing: he has won a certificate from national competition judges and has had a short story published in an anthology.

Having discovered the competitions run by the long-established Young Writers organisation, Vaibhav quickly got to work on an entry for a competition open to secondary school pupils that challenged entrants to explore the aftermath of a global catastrophe in just 100 words.

Although competing against pupils much older than him, Vaibhav won the admiration of the judges with a short piece about biological warfare gone wrong that ended in pessimistic tones with the line: “Homo sapiens, the species which outsmarted its own…”

In another competition piece, based on the stimulus of ‘If I…’, he wrote from the perspective of a puppet “held by the strings which hold my life”. He explores the puppet’s feelings of jealousy experienced as a new puppet is made by the puppeteer, “my creator and inevitable destroyer”.

Head of English Robbie Hyland said: “I congratulate Vaibhav on his success in being published and in being awarded a certificate of merit. Creative writing, which is now a very popular pursuit at QE, brings many benefits and, of course, it can also be great fun.”

Vaibhav’s short story, entitled If I Were A Puppet, won him  a page in the Young Writers’ If I…Flights of Wonder anthology. Again, he finishes in fateful fashion: “I want to be noticed. I want to be free. And my greatest wish of all – I want to be known. Then the scissors came. That was the last thoughts of the old puppet.”

Vaibhav has had an interest in writing from a very young age and searches for competitions to give him topics to write about.

There are, he says, many benefits to creative writing: “I can express my emotions. If I’m upset, I can forget about the day [through writing].”

By writing outside of School, he finds that his English studies at QE benefit – “Our last test included creative writing” – while his lessons with English teacher Yioda Menelaou are, in turn, helping him develop the writing he does in his own time for fun. “Mrs Menelaou introduced me to travel writing, which has added a new style to my writing arsenal,” he says.

Vaibhav would like to write novels in the future, although he does not yet have a firm idea in place for this. He is planning to join QE’s creative writing workshops, which are based in The Queen’s Library.

His other activities include playing the violin (he has achieved grade 4) and cricket; he was Vice-Captain of the Year 7 team last term.

From spelling and writing poetry to solving number and logic puzzles, more than 50 visiting Year 5 pupils faced a busy schedule when they took part in QE’s Primary Challenge Day.

Now in its fifth year, the event attracted entrants from a record-equalling 14 local schools, who each sent a team of four competitors.

The challenge is organised to offer local pupils the opportunity to compete in an enjoyable and stimulating setting; it involves activities focusing on English and Mathematics. Each round of the competition brought a fresh, often interactive, challenge.

Teachers Philip Brady and Marco Saccardi, of the Mathematics Department, and Sarah Snowdon and Panayiota Menelaou, of the English department, helped throughout the morning by running one of the rounds each and chatting to the participants. In addition, all the teams were allocated a Year 7 QE pupil to help them feel at home and support them.

The overall winners were Woodridge Primary School. Trent CE Primary School won the Limerick round, while the Shuttle round went to Underhill School. Foulds triumphed in the Spelling Bee and the Crossnumber round was won by Colindale Primary School.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “The visiting teams clearly thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I have to thank all the staff and QE boys who worked tirelessly to make the event such a success and make our visitors feel welcome. A number of our Year 7 boys also acted as runners on the day. It’s a less glamorous job but was vital, nonetheless, in ensuring the day ran smoothly and that our guests were well looked after.”

The event was started by Assistant Head Michael Feven, who stressed to the Year 5 pupils that the main aim of the challenge was for them to have fun and enjoy themselves. At the end, Headmaster Neil Enright congratulated all the participants and presented the winners with their certificates.

Actions speak louder than mere words on a page – as a theatre group proved when they visited QE to perform two plays from the GCSE English syllabus and lead workshops on them.

The company, Say Two Productions, performed Romeo and Juliet for Year 11, before putting on J B Priestley’s early 20th-century classic, An Inspector Calls, for the whole of Year 10.

In each case they first set the context of the play, then performed it using the respective playwright’s original language.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “The workshops served as revision sessions, with these plays being key course texts. Our visitors’ fun and engaging delivery refreshed minds about both the plot and the key issues of the plays.”

Say Two Productions design a bespoke experience based on the School’s requirements.

After performing Romeo and Juliet themselves, they engaged the boys in some acting, getting them involved in the action, characterisation and themes of the play. Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet in northern Italy, and mainly the city of Verona, during the Renaissance.

Following the performance of An Inspector Calls, Say Two Productions conducted a ‘hot-seat’ question-&-answer session – that is, answering the boys’ questions whilst still in character. This helped the boys understand the viewpoint and motivations of the different characters in the three-act play, which was first performed in 1945, but is set in 1912 in Brumley, a fictional English manufacturing town.

At the heart of An Inspector Calls is Priestley’s exposure of the hypocrisies of Edwardian English society and his highlighting of class injustice. Shakespeare’s tragedy centres on two young “star-cross’d lovers” whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families.

“With Shakespeare, sometimes seeing and hearing the text delivered helps to contextualise it and highlight how relevant the play remains thematically today. It was a good opportunity for some of the boys to immerse themselves in the play by participating in the action,” Mr Hyland added.

QE pupil Aadi Goel’s first book is now available to buy – even though he is still only 12.

The Year 8 boy’s collection of short stories and poems is called My First Solo Journey – a title drawn from the first story which recounts the real-life trip he took on his own in the summer of 2017 to visit relatives in India (and perhaps also, metaphorically, from the fact that this is his first foray into writing a book).

Self-published on Amazon, the book comprises ten poems and ten short stories. Aadi, who wrote it in his spare time, joined the QE poetry club last year and is looking forward eagerly to getting involved with the over-subscribed creative writing club this year.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My congratulations go to Aadi on his achievement in putting the book together: it is always good to see boys pursuing interests outside of the classroom. Creative writing is, in fact, a flourishing facet of School life at the moment, with boys benefiting from the support and advice of both our poet-in-residence, Anthony Anaxagorou (OE 1994-1999), and writer-in-residence, Caroline Green. Their frequent visits to the School to run clubs and workshops are helping to inspire more boys to try their hand at writing and develop their skills further.”

The writing in Aadi’s book is varied in both style and content, although adventure is a theme of several of the pieces.

Aadi began writing after being encouraged by his teachers at St Peter’s C of E Junior School in Farnborough, Hampshire. He enjoyed the process of writing the book, adding: “This has inspired me to write even more.”

Two Year 8 boys won awards for book reviews written in advance of a special Barnet event to promote reading.

Thirteen boys from Years 7 & 8 made the trip to Wren Academy for the 2018 Read4Barnet – a festival of reading that grew out of a collaboration partly spearheaded by QE librarian Ciara Murray.

Read4Barnet delegates from the eight schools taking part were either nominated by their English teachers or were part of their school’s team of librarians. In the build-up, they had firstly to read one book from a list of seven titles that have recently been published and nominated for children’s writing awards, and then to write a 500-word review of their chosen book.

QE’s Dylan Domb and Ardavan Hamisi won awards for the high quality of their reviews, earning themselves a £10 book voucher each. The book Dylan reviewed – a short novel called Rook about growing up and family – was written by Anthony McGowan, who was one of the four authors taking part in the day.

Head of English Robert Hyland, who accompanied the QE boys, said: “Our students attended the talks by Anthony McGowan and Ruth Eastham, where the writers talked through their creative processes and how they found inspiration; Ruth Eastham said hers came primarily from historical events, whereas Anthony McGowan took inspiration from classic literature and his own teenage years. Both encouraged the boys to keep on reading and writing, with Ruth Eastham advising them to: ‘Read like a butterfly, write like a bee.’”

Ruth Eastham’s reviewed book was The Warrior in the Mist. The other authors involved, with their books selected for review, were Non Pratt (Unboxed) and Nat Luurtsema (Lou out of Luck). All the writers attended an author panel where they answered questions from pupils. They also made themselves available for book signings at lunch. Nat Luurtsema won the popular vote to win the Read4Barnet best author award.

• Dylan’s review began: “Seeking a novel overflowing with an abundance of emotions, from exasperation to love, or hopelessness to hopefulness? The book you must be looking for is Rook.” Ardavan’s 500 words were on Will Hill’s book, After the Fire, which was inspired by the Waco siege in Texas 1993 when 82 members of the Branch Davidian sect and four US government agents died after a long siege. Ardavan particularly appreciated the way in which Hill gave “the perspective of an individual, where, at almost all points, the reader is smarter and is aware of more than Moonbeam [the main character] is”.