GDST English Conference

GDST English Conference

My week began early this week as ten Year 5 girls and I attempted to travel to Cardiff and back in one day, with a Shakespeare workshop thrown in for good measure. We had a fantastic day. The girls were beautifully behaved during a round trip of just under eight hours and I even managed an unscheduled 20 minute nap on our return trip, which they were kind enough not to laugh about!

The day was brilliant. The girls were welcomed with biscuits and a GDST notebook, which they used to write their observations about the paintings of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays around the Great Hall. Our girls then joined with the other groups to form a hundred strong GDST Junior Choir and learnt two Elizabethan songs including singing in rounds. After that, it was time to learn about iambic pentameter and use their earlier observations to write their own couplets. These were then ‘performed’ as our very own lute player wandered through the girls playing chords to suit the rhythm of the lines and girls took turns to say or sing theirs. The afternoon was given over to improvisation where girls worked in groups with pupils from the other schools to create versions of scenes from Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It.

I was so impressed with how well our girls threw themselves into the day, working with different girls from all over our GDST family and tackling what would normally be considered secondary school material. Laila M deserves a special mention for her confident and entertaining portrayal of ‘the prophesy’ that rose up from the witches cauldron.

Mrs Bradshaw