Published in 2020 as part of the Bloomsbury Flashbacks series, Mohinder’s War is a thrilling World War II adventure set in occupied France, featuring an Indian RAF pilot.

Twitch by M G Leonard is a mystery adventure which explores themes of friendship and bullying as well as promoting a love of nature by celebrating the incredible world of birds. Winner of The Sainsburys Children’s Book Awards and The Crimefest Award for Best Crime Novel for Children in 2021, Twitch is the first book in the Twitchers series.

We were delighted to welcome M G Leonard to Marlborough in January to introduce the book to Year 7 & 8 students.

ART

In year 7 art lessons, students looked at the work of artist Charley Harper and then produced their own bird studies using his geometric style of drawing. 

DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

Year 8 students made bird boxes in their D&T lessons​.

DRAMA

Year 7's did a whole scheme of work during the summer term using the first 2 chapters of TWITCH. Students took part in a performance using a mixture of physical theatre and traditional acting. Students also created a set or costume design.

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geography

Our year 7 students looked at maps used in literature which are based on real places like Ave's Wood in TWITCH and then created their own maps.

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HISTORY

Students learnt about how Carrier Pigeons were used during the war, as part of their scheme of work.

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The book won the Children’s Book Award for older readers in 2022 and was inspired by the true story of how Liz’s father escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe. It is suitable for all year groups, however as there are some upsetting themes covered in the book there will be plenty of opportunity for students to discuss the story with staff and each other during their lessons.

We will be running competitions and activities relating to the book, throughout the school year. 

On Wednesday 22nd February 2023, Year 7, 8 and 9 joined a virtual author visit with our Big Read author Liz Kessler. Liz spoke about the inspiration for When the World was Ours and shared photographs and documents which really helped bring the book to life for students and staff. The session concluded with a question and answer session. We have copies of the book available to borrow from the LRC but if you would like your own copy, please contact library@marlborough.herts.sch.uk  

Liz has kindly sent us a short video which talks about her inspiration for the book - see below.

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 DRAMA

Year 7 students produced this short play based on the first chapter of the book. Please click on link to view.

ENGLISH

Students from years 7-9 read and discussed extracts from the book in their English lessons and took part in a virtual visit with the author. Students also did a related word search on their chromebooks.

MFL

Students created character profiles in French and Spanish

Once again it is time for our TMSA Big Read and we are delighted to introduce this year’s book – The Giver by Lois Lowry. The Giver, first published in 1993, won the Newbery Medal and has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. It is suitable for all year groups.

The Big Read is a scheme which we hope will involve the entire Marlborough community of students, staff, parents, and governors, reading a single book by the end of this school year. Last year we explored the Big Read in Drama and Art. This year we hope to extend this to more subject areas

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This year all students and staff who read the book and pass the Accelerated Reader quiz will contribute to a house competition.

We would like all who read the book to feed back their thoughts. For parents/carers who would like to give a review, we welcome you to tweet your comments to @TMSA_LRC using #TMSABigRead. Students will be given the opportunity to complete review sheets which we will collect and use for display purposes and publish on our Instagram page.

Those who hand in a completed review sheet will also be presented with a pin badge, to show their participation.

ART

Year 8 students created alternative cover art for The Giver. First students watched an interview with Lois Lowry about the book and a trailer for the film version. They then looked at the different commercial covers that the book has had and finally students worked individually or in pairs to create their own designs.

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DRAMA

Once again students in year 7 spent time creating their own play scripts, designing costumes and planning staging and sound effects for a chapter from the book. They then produced short performances.

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Starting in 2019 with I Have No Secrets by Penny Joelson and continuing in 2020 with Car-Jacked by Ali Sparkes, The Big Read involves choosing one book which all students, staff, parents and governors are encouraged to read and discuss. Last year we developed this further with cross curricular activities in Drama and Languages and this year we hope to expand this to even more subject areas to encourage further discussion of the themes explored in the book.

This year our chosen book is Armistice Runner by Tom Palmer.This book won the Children’s Book Award Older Reader Category in 2019 and is a fabulous story, exploring many important themes. It is suitable for all students and written in a dyslexia friendly format to make it even more accessible. 

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Lily has lots of worries. She's struggling to compete in her fell-running races and, worse, she's losing her gran to Alzheimer's. But then she discovers her great-great-grandfather's diaries from the First World War. Could his incredible story of bravery help her reconnect with her gran and even give her the inspiration she needs to push through and win?

Tom has kindly made this video to introduce the book to us.

DRAMA

Ms Day’s Year 7 Drama classes have been working on a project based on chapters from our Big Read Armistice Runner this half term, on Monday 14th June the first class shared their final performances. There was some very inventive staging, use of sound effects and some strong performances.

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Three more of Ms Day’s Year 7 Drama classes have shared their performances of scenes from our Big Read, Armistice Runner by Tom Palmer. It was lovely to see some effective use of sound and the different ways that the chapters had been interpreted. There were also some fantastic costumes and props. A special mention goes to Melayna Chiklia 7 for making a mountain rescue helicopter!

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You can see some sections of the performances on the LRC Instagram account 

ART

Year 8 students did some fantastic work for our Big Read recently in art. Students looked at what makes a good book cover and worked through a prediction worksheet before creating alternative book covers for Armistice Runner. Some of the best examples are shown below and were also published on our social media accounts gaining a well done from the author Tom Palmer.

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Jack Mattingly is a genius.
He has an IQ of 170.
He speaks fluent Mandarin and Latin.
And he can calculate the square root of 1,673,549 in his head.
But when Jack's parents' car is hi-jacked, with him inside it, for once he's as clueless as the rest of us. The car-jacker doesn't know Jack's in the car - yet. But it's only a matter of time before he's discovered. And then anything could happen. Only one thing's for sure: Jack's in for the thrill-ride of his life . . .
A high-octane adventure from the winner of the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award.

Students were introduced to the book on Monday 7th October during form and lessons. Year 7 students also heard from the author herself.

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 We were lucky enough to have her visit the school on Monday 7th October. 

Ali lives in Southampton with her husband and two teenage sons. She always wanted to be an actress and did some theatre and television work in her teens. She then became a reporter in Southampton and went on to write comedy for radio but eventually realised that she loved to write stories and became a full time author. Here books include The Shapeshifter Series, Destination Earth and Death by Detention as well as Frozen in Time, winner of the Blue Peter Book Award and Car-Jacked which has been chosen as our Big Read this year.

During the Spring Term we will be introducing some cross curricular activities and competitions related to the book and hope to encourage more students to read and discuss it. We will also be launching an audio version of the book read by members of staff so watch this space!

DRAMA

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LANGUAGES

Mr Henshall’s Year 7 students wrote character profiles in French. Some of the best examples can be seen below.

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In March 2019 we launched our first ever Big Read, I Have no Secrets by Penny Joelson as part of our Book Week celebrations. This award winning book is a fast paced thriller with short engaging chapters and has proved popular with students of all ages and abilities. On Monday 4^th March, staff read a chapter of the book aloud to students during registration and at the beginning of each lesson, so that by the end of the day they had heard the first six chapters. Students and staff were then encouraged to read the rest of the book and complete a short review to earn themselves an exclusive Big Read badge. During Book Week, Miss Leggatt ran a session for students at lunchtime in the LRC, painting the book cover on to flat pebbles. We were also lucky enough to have the author herself visit the school in April.

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