English

Chaucer Day

Congregating at eight in the morning at King’s Cross station may not be everyone’s ideal start to a Wednesday morning. Tempering the early beginning with the promise of a day of lectures, you may just make the experience sound even less exciting. However, we were yet to discover the joys that a day packed full of all things Geoffrey Chaucer had to offer us. Armed with our copies of The Merchant’s Tale, Year Twelve English literature students headed to Oxford for a day of learning all about the Canterbury Tales amongst the picturesque Oxford streets ranging from a tour of the Ashmolean, two seminars at the Bodleian and lectures from world-renowned professors.

Arriving early at our first lecture, our group was very punctual to the first stop of the day and managed to secure front row seats. One of the difficulties many of us had found in studying Chaucer was how far removed his life was from our own and it had meant that many allusions he made were allowed to fall through the cracks as we simply did not understand them. The first two lectures gave us great insight into both the historical and literary context from which Chaucer drew. Something we learnt that surprised me was Chaucer’s access to the outside world, as his father’s job as a vintner (wine merchant) would have exposed him to goods from around the world. We learnt the meaning behind many of his more subtle choices for example, in The Merchant’s Tale, Chaucer sets the lecherous man’s home in Lombardy, a town which was then associated with tyranny, brothels and banks. Whilst the lectures were very interesting, the most incredible part of the day was the opportunity to touch a manuscript dating back to around 1450. We learnt about how to date manuscripts and estimate which strata of society would have owned it. Forexample, this manuscript was on parchment and decorated decadently with gold and blue illustrations (blue was a mark of luxury as it was the most expensive colour due to it being incredibly rare) and had large margins for notes to be made around the text. These luxuries marked it out as something owned by the highest of nobility (which was already probable as mostly aristocratic males were able to read during Chaucer’s lifetime).

After a brief lunch, we were hurried away to our final stop of the day – a tour of the famous Ashmolean museum. We were shown many objects pertinent to our text, such as memorabilia depicting St Thomas Becket which would have been worn by those who had completed the Canterbury pilgrimage being undertaken by the Merchant in our text. Finally, we were allowed some much-needed time to wander around picturesque Oxford before catching our train back to London, eventually meeting at a Waterstones when we were finished The day was very eventful as we spent it being hurried between workshops and bombarded with information. However, it was the perfect blend of enjoyable and useful, with everyone learning interesting and important information with which to improve our understanding of The Merchant’s Prologue and Tale. Although, upon reflection, it is probably best to mention that, whilst everyone feels much more confident with handling Middle English, nobody is prepared to speak it with the accent!

Sapna Joshi, Year 12

Q &A with Hannah Sullivan

Earlier this year NHEHS students from years 11-13 were extremely lucky to host Dr Hannah Sullivan for an insightful Q&A session about her career and studying English Literature. Dr Sullivan is currently a lecturer at New College in Oxford University, who recently won the T.S Elliot prize for her debut collection ‘Three Poems.’ She is one of only three poets to ever receive the prize for a debut work, which has wowed critics with its refreshing perspective on established themes such as sex, mortality and gender.

Dr Sullivan gave us not only a useful insight into what studying English Literature is like at the top universities, but also gave honest advice about the admissions process for universities like Oxford and Cambridge. With regards to her poetry collection, Dr Sullivan was very open about her experiences in New York and how that inspired her poem ‘You, Very Young in New York’ where she explores feelings of disillusionment from being in such a large city. She also told a story about the time she was paired up with Natalie Portman at a poetry seminar, which is definitely a surreal moment looking back now. Dr Sullivan was extremely genuine in her responses during the Q&A session and it was extremely refreshing to hear about her stories and experiences in the academic community. She is a true inspiration to all NHEHS students as she has managed to excel in a mostly masculine environment and we are very grateful to have had the opportunity to share some time with her.

World Book Day

English

The Year 12 English reps were asked to organise an event for the first day of World Book Week. Given that the theme was children books, we figured “what would be better than organising a Where’s Wally English themed hunt?” To get people excited and ready for the day we put posters around the school and went around making announcements. We made up questions relevant to World Book Day which were all linked to the author Roald Dahl. Once the students solved a question they were given a clue which led them to a different place in the school where there was another question for them to find and so on. As the students ran around the school answering questions, they also had to collect letters. These letters spelled out the name of Roald Dahl. To find the final letter they then had to track down the girl dressed at Wally and race back. Once the girls had found all the letters they came back to the starting point where they were given a chocolate.

There was a range of years of students that took part in the hunt from Year 7 to Year 11. Some girls went in groups to cover more ground and many got very excited about the competition. It was a greater success than we could have ever hoped for, with students crammed into the classroom!

For those that did not want to take part in the hunt there were book-themed word searches for people to fill in. These were also enjoyed by pupils, who not only filled them in during the lunch break, but some also took them home to do later. Once the Where’s Wally search was complete and everyone returned to the classroom, many still maintained their competitive spirit willing to take part in the numerous Kahoot quizzes that we had prepared beforehand on iPads that were borrowed from the library. We had a classroom full of bubbly and happy girls expressing their knowledge of literature; determined to win the gold medal.

Overall the day was thoroughly enjoyable, with many girls expressing their wish that they could do World Book Day, every week. I look forward to the next World Book Day!

Sophie Buhler, Year 12

Poetry Conference 2019

On 26th March 2019, NHEHS hosted its inaugral GCSE Poetry Conference. We were lucky enough to be visited by renowned poet Daljit Nagra and UCL Professor of English Mark Ford, who shared their love of poetry with GCSE students from our school, as well as pupils from Brentside High School and Ealing Park High School.

Li-An Tan and Isabel Hepburne-Smith asked Daljit why he chose to write poetry:

“I have also written novels in the past, but there is so much more going on in poetry. It’s exciting, quick, compressed. In a sense I think that poetry needs comment far more than fiction because poetry is harder to make sense of. The need for analysis therefore, is far greater.”