quality. Some very impressive investigative pieces have come about after a boy has secured an interview with a credulous international sportsperson, CEO or national politician only to show up with the same interviewing skill set and technical kit that mainstream journalists employ. This authenticity is a key principle of the College Department
inspire. Reading is guided by teachers and the processes of reading are made explicit. There is a close match built between the genres of text the students read, and the texts they write, making their reading a powerful source of knowledge and inspiration for all their writing. The picture that forms in the boys’ minds is that everything in English is inter-related. Every skill learnt, every piece of knowledge acquired will be recruited to further use in the future. The wisdom of the department sits behind this, ensuring that each convention of language and literature leads on to the next, creating a seamless progression. Such a structure and precise approach to the core learning has created a real freedom of context. Again informed by established knowledge in effective learning, the College journalism programme is woven into English through the newsroom and Media
Studies courses. All students are exposed to the culture and conventions of journalism and through engaging in their own investigative journalism projects can enact the ethos, precision,
of English’s work. If a student is to write a biography, then it will be a biography of an important person in their life. Their creative writing is drawn from their personal experience and explores themes of importance to them. Boys choose their own journalism inquiries, their own documentary subjects, and they speak their own minds. This vivid attention to the present moment, the real-world context that the boys’ learning is situated in and the unrelenting focus on the advanced skills of reading and writing are bringing success to College English scholars and equipping them to enter the world with the assurance and imagination to embrace everything of this magnificent world that Shakespeare so powerfully evokes.
and rigour of a journalistic professional. Boys visit the
Christchurch District Court and report on the cases they observe there. They interrogate local and national issues, and all their work is published via the department live-stream. The quality of their work is so strong that much of what they produce is then selected for broadcast on local radio station Plains FM. With the support of a substantial grant from the Acland Foundation, boys involved in any year of the five-year journalism programme have access to state-of-the-art audio production equipment to ensure the work they produce meets professional standards – not just in the sophistication of the content, but in production
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