Dame Alice Owen's School
The English Department have used the new changes to GCSE and A Level syllabuses as an opportunity to revise our Programmes of Study and to ensure we are teaching interesting and challenging texts! We have worked on innovative ways to introduce Year 7 to Chaucer, Keats and other Pre 1914 writers. This year we will be bringing the Gothic genre alive for Year 8 students with a workshop and author visit too.
In order to improve the quality /challenge for all students we have also maintained a broad range of extra-curricular activities such as Newspaper Day (Year 9), Sixth-Form Reading Festival, visiting authors every term, drama workshops and regular Theatre trips as well as a residential visit to Stratford-U-Avon to see the last performance at The courtyard Theatre.
We encourage our students to take part in at least one of the following clubs at lunchtime: Youth Speaks (public speaking competition), Debating Society, Poetry club and we are hoping to offer creative writing in the future.
At a more fundamental level, we have enjoyed working with Ian Warwick of the London G&T Institute on stretching our most able students and strategies for developing thinking and independent learning skills.
Dame Alice Owen's School is mixed school for students aged 11-18 in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire.