This month we celebrated Creative Arts Week, focussing on the topic of deconstructing tropes and stereotypes in the Arts.

We began the week with a reading battle, deciding whether Nora in Cinderella is Dead or Sophia in A Doll’s House breaks free most powerfully from the patriarchal cages in which they live. The results will be announced in assembly!

Year 7 and 8 pupils did a musical theatre workshop learning a dance and chorus Six! The Musical, which retells the story of Henry VIII and his wives from the perspective of the wives. Key stages 4 and 5 took part in a creative writing workshop with Booker prize nominated author, Stephen Kelman who also talked about his novel ‘Pigeon English’.

Booker prize shortlisted author, Stephen Kelman, led a creative writing workshop for Year 10 and then did a talk about his novel ‘Pigeon English’ to staff and pupils in Years 10-12 from Channing and Parliament Hill School.

On Tuesday afternoon, we attended a creative writing workshop hosted by published author  Stephen Kelman where we were given the prompt of writing a descriptive piece inspired by a personal turning point. Whilst initially challenging, with his assistance and advice soon all were engrossed in the task we had been set. He even encouraged a few students to share their own thoughtful work.  Later in the day, he hosted an inspiring talk reflecting on his personal challenges with writing his book ‘Pigeon English’ which was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 2011. The talk focused on the idea of unfulfilled potential and how the tragic case of the murder of a young boy sparked a reflection on his own childhood and how creativity and potential can be stifled in young children if their environment is not hospitable to their art. It was a valuable and insightful experience for both GCSE students and those interested in the creative writing process.

 Lucy D 10GM

Later in the week Mr Williams, a Channing parent and art dealer, spoke to us about Realism in Renaissance art, looking at how artists entirely changed the course of Art History. We look forward to seeing who has won the amphora decorating competition in Classics and the book cover re-design task in Art.

On World Book Day we celebrated with a book quiz, lucky dip and ‘blind date with a book’ activity at breaktime and a Literary Salon led by teachers in the library at lunch. Pupils enjoyed hearing from their teachers about the books they’ve enjoyed, including Mrs Hughes reading from P.G. Wodehouse’s ‘Carry on, Jeeves’, Ms Wilkinson reading from ‘Jurassic Park’ by Michael Crichton, Mr Boardman reading from ‘Leila and the Blue Fox’ by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Mr Meier reading a Grimm’s fairy tale in German and Mr Matjilla reading from ‘The Island of Missing Trees’ by Elif Shafak. We also enjoyed a talk on Sylvia Plath and her husband, the former Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes.

International Women’s Day assembly began with, ‘Girls to the Front’, which looked at how tropes such as the ‘wicked witch’, the ‘siren’ and the ‘idealised mother’ have been challenged in books, film, art and music by various female artists. We ended the week with a performance from the show choir.