Blog week ending 28th January

Research shows that there is a significant link between students being fluent readers and achieving success across GCSE subjects, in fact, the link between good reading and good grades is actually higher in Maths than in some Arts subjects like English Literature and History.  At Stone Lodge we practice Reciprocal Reading across our curriculum.  Reciprocal Reading is a structured approach to teaching strategies (questioning, clarifying, summarising and predicting) that students can use to improve their reading comprehension. 

The four stages of Reciprocal Reading are;

• Predict – what are we going to read about in the next section of text? Explicitly demonstrate how expert readers use cues in the text.
• Clarify – which words & phrases do we need to establish the meaning of?
• Question – use questions to develop understanding and inference?
• Summarise – what are the main ideas? Reviewing, consolidating the content of the text and ensuring comprehension.

Mrs Artmann, Assistant Head Teacher and Head of English is leading the adoption of Reciprocal Reading across the school with the aim of improving overall literacy and comprehension skills across subjects.  Students will work individually and in groups to explore new vocabulary and ideas as well as to reflect and self-assess their understanding and build on their thinking skills.

Miss Burgess’ Year 8 English students have been practising ahead of their creative writing assessment.  Students worked, using Reciprocal Reading techniques to share and develop ideas and strategies.

Our Book Club Group meets every Thursday lunchtime – all are welcome!  Miss Burgess and her group read and discuss books from a wide range of genres.  For each book they read, students write a review which is then shared in our library to help and encourage students to read their recommendations!  Year 8 students Dolcie C, Nakshathra R and Chloe C have recently added the below review .. and the book is available to borrow from our library.

SLS Book Club: Book Review - So This Is Love by Elizabeth Lim

Through the classic story of Cinderella, Elizabeth Lim has creatively added twists and turns to create the fresh story of So This Is Love. One of the most significant aspects of this book is that it follows different perspectives of each character in the book, which makes it stand out from any other book that we have read; this is something really intriguing about the tale. This realistic fictional tale very clearly emphasises how life is not always straightforward and your destiny is not always crystal clear and open for you to get; you need to go through many sacrifices and difficult moments in order to get a happily-ever-after.

Is this story as good as it is to be perceived? Well, the one thing this story has shown us is how to develop an already good character into one that has relatable flaws and problems to overcome. It is easy to see Cinderella as a quiet, humble, and sweet character, but in this story, she is also strong, forceful, and intelligent. This leads us to understand more about her and her past actions helping us to unravel her personality and therefore being able to see things in a different perspective according to her character.    

 Furthermore, ‘mysterious’ is a word we would use to best describe this book because while reading this book you will have many assumptions about many characters, especially the villain. This is because this story raises lots of questions related to the characters, predominantly the antagonist, due to the side plots in this tale which eventually lead into one narrative stream creating an admirable love story worth reading.

With all that being said, every book will at least have one flaw that can taint the story a bit and, in this case, we believe that the culprit would be the villain. When first reading the book, it is noticeably clear from Chapter 3 who ‘the bad guy’ is supposed to be. While we are not saying that is truly terrible, we are saying that is not what we think the author had intended with her giving small hints towards him not being the villain and then large, obvious shouts to him being the bad guy. This made it hard to understand what to believe and the reasons for his actions as it still left more question than answers. However, this did have its advantages since it created more suspense and tension which was quite interesting to read and discover.

In conclusion, So this Is Love by Elizabeth Lim is a fascinating and graceful fairy tale with lots of potential that shows that hope and dedication will always succeed and that if you put in enough effort and determination into your dreams, you will unlock your destiny to what YOU want it to be and not what others want it to be.

Ms Ryan has scheduled an Open Mic night session - open to all performers from every year group, any style or genre of performance including; spoken word, dancers, musicians, actors, poets etc.  Everyone is welcome .. so, save the date - 10^th Feb 3.30-4.30pm.  There will be a mic and amp available but please do bring any instruments or props you may need with you.  Staff are also welcome to join in!   

Congratulations to our Year 9 Student Leaders who have successfully completed their leadership accreditations. 

InvestIN offers students aged 12-18 the chance to experience their dream career by providing them with industry experiences and advice on how to choose and succeed their future career path.  They have shared the below free-of-charge online opportunity.  For further information on the course and to sign-up please click the link below.

Invitation for Parents: Success Beyond School 

We are delighted to announce the first events in our Success Beyond School series for 2022. These are free-of-charge, live online seminars featuring career experts, designed to help parents amplify their children’s career potential.

We have 5 fantastic seminars this term, including topics such as 'how to help your child choose their career' and 'how to inspire young women to become entrepreneurs.' These events are for parents of students aged 12-18 and are free to attend. 

To find out more about this course and others in the series please click here

Best wishes,

Gavin Barnett

Head Teacher