Blackhen Education - 2016 Review

The New Year has well and truly started. Whilst most people use this time of year to de-clutter, stash bust or turn over a new leaf, for us at Blackhen Education, it is a time to reflect and celebrate the year that has just finished.

So what did our students do in 2016?

We ran several successful competitions, starting Valentine’s Day. This is always a popular competition and the entries were lovely.

In September, students entered our Roald Dahl Day competition. As one of our best loved authors, we feel this is always an important day to celebrate.

To celebrate Christmas, students were asked to write a ghost story or design a new sledge for Father Christmas. We had a lot of fun looking at the wonderful entries and choosing our winner.

IGCSE English Exams

In May and June our IGCSE English students sat their final exams, (despite industrial action and travel disruption). And in August we received the brilliant results. Our students had achieved 100% A-C grades, including an A* and 2 A’s.

New Courses

In September, we were very excited about launching two new English courses at Blackhen Education. A Foundation English course for 4-5 year olds and Key Stage 1 (5-6 year olds) course. Both courses were written by Karen Crichton, one of our specialist English tutors at Blackhen Education.These now complete the series of 14 courses we offer for age groups 4 –16 yrs. Students can now start with us at the age of 4 and continue up to and including IGCSE. We also launched our new one year 14+ English course. After Key Stage 3 (11-14 yrs), students can now opt for 14+ English, without sitting any exams at the end.

New Tutor

In October we welcomed Bernadette Whiteley to the team, making us up to 5 tutors. Bernadette is a KS2 ( 7-11 yrs) specialist teacher and has been an invaluable addition to Blackhen Education.

Our Students

Of course we cannot finish the year without mentioning the impressive standard of work our students produced, from the youngest aged 4 through to the eldest ages 16. Considering our students complete their Blackhen work along side their French school work ( and other countries), it is truly amazing what they produce!

Our History students continued to produce excellent work. The course, now in it’s second year, covers Anglo Saxon Britain through to post war Britain.

What does 2017 hold in stall for Blackhen Education?

Competitions

New Charity to support

IGCSE English Language & English Literature exams

Monthly blogs and more……

For more information about any of our courses, visit our website at: www.blackheneducation.com or contact me at: sue@blackheneducation.com

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children - Creative Writing Ideas

                                                                        

I heard about this book a couple of weeks ago and have been fascinated with it ever since. I particularly love the use of  spooky, old photographs in the book and as a teacher, the idea of a home or school for 'peculiar' children.

So what is the book about?
A teenage boy (Jacob) travels to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he finds the ruins of an old house; Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children. Who were these children? Why were they there? Why were they 'peculiar'?

This is the link for the offical trailer to the film and it will give you a little taste of what is to come!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAdpJw-MM-M 

I then began to think about how the book and it's wonderful photographs could be used as starting points for creative writing. In particular, writing prompts for Key Stage 3 (11-14 year olds) students.

Here are some ideas:

1) Using photographs from the book as stimuli.:

These three photographs come from the book. I won't tell you who they are, I will leave that up to you to imagine. What are their names? Why are they at Miss Peregrine's home? Why are the two younger children dressed as clowns? Where have they come from? What happens to them all?


2) Using your own photographs as stimuli:

Here are three old photographs from my own collection. I can already see a story evolving. Who are the family on the left? What has happened to them? How old is the house? Where is the house? Is it empty? Who are three girls? What are their names? Have they been to school? Or are they going to school?

 

 

3) Using the set of the house as a starting point for descriptive writing.

Imagine you have arrived at the house for the first time. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? Who else is there? How do you feel?


4) Imagine you have been asked to interview Miss Peregrine. What questions would you ask her? How might she reply? Are you nervous? Is she scary?
                                                                 

5) Write a diary entry as if you are Jacob. Write about the first time you lay eyes on Miss Peregrine, or one of the 'peculiar' children. What time of day or night do you meet them?How do you feel? How do they react to you? Do you want to run away from them? Are they friendly?

6) Check out the offical website of the author Ransom Riggs, to find out more about him, his books and read the opening chapter from Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children.

http://www.ransomriggs.com/

All of these ideas can be done at home and will help your child with their English writing skills.

If you want to take it further, you can use one of the central themes to start a discussion or a prompt for a piece of non fiction writing.

The book has a lot of deeper messages within it, two of these being:
1) Tolerance/ tolerating people who are different.
2) Persecution / treatment of Jews during World War ( Jacob's Polish grandfather escapes the Jews during WWII).

I would love to see any of your work that comes from these ideas. It might be a piece of writing or a picture, but feel free to send it to us at: sue@blackheneducation.com

For more information about any of our online English courses, please visit our website:
www.blackheneducation.com or email me at: sue@blackheneducation.com

5 Key Elements of a Gothic Story.

As Halloween rapidly approaches and the desire for all things ‘spooky’ rises, we are going to look at the lure of Gothic stories. At this time of year we see the popular images of what we take to represent scary and fearful things eg ghosts, witches, vampires and the odd zombie thrown in for good measure. All of these can be traced back to the genre of Gothic Literature.

So what is a Gothic story?

A Gothic story is a type of fiction that combines elements of horror, death and romanticism. It is a very stylized type of horror story. It generally contains these key elements:

1. Creepy setting- usually a castle, old house, forest or somewhere remote.
2. Weather- this is usually a storm or at the least heavy rain.
3. Supernatural threat- in the form of a Vampire, ghost, witch, ancient curse etc.
4. Isolated person or group- very often young or female in danger.
5. The location is cut off from the outside world, and so help is difficult to get.

When did they become popular?

Gothic stories first became popular in the 18^th century. The first ‘Gothic’ story is generally thought to be ‘The Castle of Otranto’ published in 1764, by Horace Walpole.

How did they cross over into Horror films?

With the growth of cinema in the early 20^th century, Gothic stories gradually became adapted and made into Horror stories. Most horror stories conform to Gothic story standards. This and the fact that people like to be scared.

   

What would be a good Gothic story to read this Halloween (or any time?)

1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
3. The Turn of the Screw by M. R. James
4. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
5. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice
6. My Sword hand is Singing by Marcus Sedgewick
7. Twilight by William Gay*
8. Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
9. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
10. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

NB-

*This has nothing to do with teenage Vampires! It is a ‘southern’ Gothic story set in 1950s Tennessee and about a very creepy undertaker.

For more information about any of our online KS2, KS3 & IGCSE English courses, please contact us at: sue@blackheneducation.com or visit our website: www.blackheneducation.com

'Witch Child' - KS3 (12-13yrs) English course.

This month our 12-13 year old students have been working on a unit of work based on the book 'Witch Child' by Celia Rees. It tells the story of the world of Mary Newbury, whose grandmother is accused and murdered for being a witch. Her story is told in the style of a diary.

One of the tasks was to create a poster, warning people in 17th century England of witches. The students came up with some wonderful ideas and here are a few of their designs.

 Angus's poster.

Elena's poster.

Jake's poster.

For another lesson they had to write a diary entry, as if they were someone or knew someone who had been accused of witchcraft.

 Angus's diary entry.

Jake's diary entry.

Elena's diary entry.

Key Stage 3 - Gothic Literature

                                                             

One of the units for our 12-13 year old students is 'Gothic'.

Most of our older students have heard of 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein, but have not studied the texts or genre of Gothic literature in their French schools. They only know of the characters from films and comics.

In the unit of four lessons, they look at:

1) The Gothic genre
2) Research Dracula or Frankenstein
3) Design a book cover for a Gothic novel
4) Write an interview with a character from a Gothic novel

We believe it is important to have a mixture of written and creative tasks in the units for all of our students. Here are some of the wonderful book cover designs we received this year.

I am always impressed with the imaginative and creative designs they come up with!

 I love the 'foggy' atmosphere that this student has been able to achieve with her front cover for Dracula. I also like the choice of font for the description for the book.

This poster is brilliant! It was all hand drawn by Dan and is really quite creepy when you see it in the flesh!