1) Entries for the Rotary creative writing competition need to be with teachers asap – Monday 13th is our internal deadline for entries (and entry forms).  There are options for prose and poetry.  Please see any of the English team if you would like further information.

2) Revision this week is Miss Beevor, focusing on English Language comparison (Paper 2, Q2 and 4) in room A12.  Focus will be on how to use inference when you compare.

3) Monthly Bedrock words are: attention, variety, revert, assume, retain, renowned, meticulous and transient. Please try and use these words in your work this month!  For example, make sure your work has *variety* of ideas and *meticulous* use of vocabulary so you can *retain* a high grade.

4) Bedrock shout outs to Dylan R, Esmee W and Theo K, who are topping the points leaderboard for February so far. 9HL are leading the way overall, with over 50% of students exceeding their 20 point targets.

5) Work of the week this week is from Y13 English Language student Will P. His opinion piece was exemplary (writing about language issues in an entertaining but ultimately informative way as part of their exam). Will’s topic was a discussion of apostrophe confusion and was expressed really well, as you can see below:

“The most controversial and contested piece of punctuation is most certainly the apostrophe, developing quite a cult following from sycophantic prescriptivists who may not be aware of its rocky past. Apostrophes were originally created as a way to indicate syllables that people were too lazy to write (see Shakespeare’s walk’d), and as a way to signal possession. Their confusion was less of an issue when nobody apart from a few scholars could write, and so nobody would be subject to Lynne Truss’ wish for lightning to strike anyone who dared misuse them. But come the 18th century, most people needed rules to support their writing, which grammarians provided: rules forged from logic, Latin and personal preference.

Whilst those up in arms over a floating comma may be fun to ridicule, the idea of a uniform mindset is an appealing one. Psychologist Steven Pinker states that there isn’t a distinct advantage to a specific rule, apart from the ease if everyone follows the same rules. This idea of a middle ground helps us understand why some people are so attached to the whims of 300 year old monks, where others just want their dog to own a ball (its ball, not it’s ball). 

6) Revision

Since apostrophes have been a popular topic for Y13 Language students, and since good punctuation is a big part of achieving well in Section B of both GCSE Language Paper 1 and 2, it would be worth revisiting rules around apostrophes.  Please follow these links, memorise the rules and include good apostrophe use in your next pieces of work:

How to use possessive apostrophes – BBC Bitesize

How to check your apostrophes are correct – BBC Bitesize