‘Cool’, ‘amazing’, and ‘exciting’ were just a few of the words which Etone pupils used to describe their sessions with Damani Dennisur on National Poetry Day (3^rd October 2024).   Damani’s performance poetry was exciting, dramatic, and engaging for years 7, 8, 9, and 10 showing them how relevant and impactful poetry can be.

Some workshops included poetry writing, feeding creativity and encouraging pupils to express their ideas.  Eric and Autumn, Year 7 were particularly pleased with their poems and enjoyed sharing them with Damani at breaktime in the library.

Dark tonight,

Falls of sun light,

Stars fall into each other

As the darkness of space welcomes skyfall.

Eric, Year 7

We are very much looking forward to welcoming Damani back to Etone in the future.

A stunning 82 pupils engaged in our Summer Reading Challenge this year, with an amazing 66 receiving their bronze reading award!  Well done to everyone involved, reading makes such a huge difference to your education and should be highly valued.

On Friday, 27th September, we drew our prize winners for the 'Summer Reading Challenge Bonus'.  Our winners were Laila-Madison and Lotus from year 7 who both won books.

Etone pupils celebrated Roald Dahl day with some marvellous activities!  Year 7 battled it out with a lunch time quiz, matching up characters to their books.  Pupils from years 7-9 took a challenge card home to complete some fun tasks including telling jokes and making up silly words, just like Roald Dahl liked to do.  We had lots of wonderful contributions to creating dream jars as seen in the book, The BFG.  Finally, we finished off by announcing our two winners, Autumn Moore and Katie Benfell, for their amazing creative talents.

Books for Big Change – National Literacy Trust

The National Literacy Trust recognise that the transition from primary to secondary school is a big change. As a school, we work hard to support this transition and as such would like to share some information about recommended reads that might help to support transition.

Please find below a link to the titles recommended by the National Literacy Trust for transition.  They have included a range of titles and genres so that pupils can hopefully find something that is right for them.  Pupils will have a chance to read these books when they arrive at Etone as we will be ordering copies of our library and our lunchtime book boxes.

https://literacytrust.org.uk/resources/books-for-big-change-transition-to-secondary-school/

Do please also encourage your child to take part in the literacy and reading challenges that are part of their Passport to Etone. We are really looking forward to seeing what they have done over the summer when we return in September. 

Some year 9 classes enjoyed an online author event with LGBTQAI+ writer, Joseph Eliott on Friday, 21^st June.  Joseph's debut novel was Carnegie nominated and a Times Book of the Year as well as having won The Highland Book Prize and his writing promotes acceptance, tolerance, and equality.  They listened attentively as Joseph spoke about his career including performing and script writing for children's television (star and cowriter of CBBC's series, Swashbuckle).  He promoted the values of acceptance, equality, and awareness in his novel, 'The Good Hawk', a teen novel written explicitly to include LBGTQIA+ characters.  Joseph recommended some other novels that pupils may like to read including, Heartstopper, Jamie, The Other Boy, Death in the Spotlight, Eight Pieces of Silva, Wranglestone, and The Black Flamingo before describing key elements of his epic adventure novel.  Agatha, (a 15 year old 'hawk' with down syndrome) and Jaime (a 14 year old 'angler' who is kind and smart) are the only survivors of a tribal attack and must travel across Scotia to rescue their families.  Joseph read an extract of his novel and then gave key tips to aspiring writers:  1) read books that excite you; 2) write without worrying about the quality - just start; and 3) read your own work out loud.

Pupils can order signed copies of 'The Good Hawk' to be delivered to school by 28^th June.

On Friday afternoon, 24 year 7 pupils visited Nuneaton library to borrow 'human books' to celebrate the end of Careers Week.  They had an amazing time listening to the books' stories and also took the opportunity to explore the library, speak to librarians and learn as much as possible.  They borrowed various books including 

Jason Buck: ‘Fantasy Storyteller for Adults and Teenagers’

Kim Hackleman: ‘Shout Out for the Arts Coordinator’

Hareena: ‘Family Learning Co-ordinator’

Ele Haddon: ‘Operational director performing arts charity’Emily Jeffcott: ‘Diary of an Apprentice in the Arts’

Well done to year 7 and a massive thank-you to Anjna Chouhan for organising the event.

On Thursday Etone was out in force to celebrate World Book Day 2024. The initiative started in the early 90’s to support getting the world reading after reading ages dipped to an all time low. Flash forward over 30 years, now the day is celebrated around the world as the flagship event in the literacy calendar.

To show our own support Etone took part in a number of initiatives to get the whole school involved. First of all our staff raided their costume boxes to dress up as their favourite literacy characters. This year our team had some truly genius offerings with story book characters, real life role models and of course Winnie-the-Pooh. This year the PE team decided to show their true colours, by spotting up as a group of the 101 Dalmatians. Mrs Oakley of course led the team as a terrifying Cruella Deville, whilst the MFL department wowed with fairytale favourites. To tie this in with our pupils’ fun, they were tasked to find out interesting facts about each of the characters, with one interesting fact being from Mr Bowley, whose idol (Richard Branson) started his first business – the magazine Student – to get more students in the country reading.

Next up our Year 7 Form Teams descended to the Hall to take part in this years edition of The Big Book Quiz. A cornerstone of our celebrations, Phoenix once again steered towards victory to make it a second year in a row. Check out the results here.

Finally, our day ended with a scavenger hunt challenge to find out which staff member’s favourite read was on their list. With the results yet to be declared, we await next week for the award.

1. 7P1 – 54 POINTS
2. 7C2 – 49 POINTS
3. 7P2 – 45 POINTS
4. 7C1 AND 7D1  - 40 POINTS
5. 7G2 – 33 POINTS
6. 7G1 – 25 POINTS

Next week, pupils at Etone will be celebrating World Book Day with a series of games and activities to promote their love of reading.

They will get the chance to see their teachers dressed up as favourite characters and to find out fun facts about them.  They will also be challenged to deduce which books inspired their teachers to read when they were younger.  Year 7 pupils will take place in the 'BIG Book Quiz' to test their knowledge of the world of books.

Miss White will be launching the 'guess the teacher' competition where tutor groups will get to see many of their disguised teachers reading extracts from their well-loved books.  Will they be able to guess who?

We have loads of book prizes available to be won on the day and there might even be some surprise giveaways so get thinking - what do you love about reading?

In the week after World Book Day the Scholastic Book Fair will be vising Etone again where pupils will have the chance to browse and buy a wide range of reduced and half price titles.

This week the Book Fair is in town and our pupils have really taken to the opportunity to win books for taking part in our reading challenges. Here is our first winner from Y8 picking their chosen book.

Remember the Book Fair is open till 4pm on Thursday for pupils to visit and purchase a range of fantastic, great value books.