Page 26 - Headingtonian Magazine 2017

Creative writing comes to the fore in our extra-curricular Writing Club, too. The girls involved with Folio, Headington’s online literary magazine, work as a team to produce and gather the best prose, poetry and scripts from the whole School. As part of something we call Hot Spot, girls from the 5th and 6th form who are interested in journalism and media can put together their own magazine. Aqila is a recent award-winning example. (You can find out more about it on page 21).
We have also introduced the Headington Certificate in Creative Writing which is aimed at Middle School and Sixth Form pupils who create a portfolio of different writing styles. They are tutored in smaller groups or even individually by Emma Bates and me.
When I meet girls coming to Headington
for the first time, many say how much they enjoy reading and writing. With girls often being involved with so many things at School, creative writing is something they can fit into their own time. It’s not onerous and girls find it an exciting and relaxing thing to do. In fact, in a creative writing holiday we organised, there were no phones, no internet, just the chance to get away for a few days and explore their imagination and write. While we were planning the event, I was worried the girls might get bored. Not a bit of it. With mentoring from published writers, and the chance to just focus on writing, the girls loved every minute.
Not forgetting our poetry slams! These work across age groups and year streams and bring
pupils from Year 7 to the Sixth Form together to write and recite or perform their poems. It’s a competition, so each House wants to do well and many pupils who may not have written poetry before decide to give it a go. Often they come at it in really different and imaginative ways – like the wonderful poem presented in the last Poetry Slam that was written in the form and language of a text message conversation. It’s truly inspiring
to see insightful and sensitive thoughts emerging in the form of beautiful poetry.
I’m absolutely certain that there are wordsmiths at Headington today who will go on to be tomorrow’s creative writers and media performers.’
GIRLS WILL...BE GIRLS Tamsin Rodgers
An Ancestral Journey Sasha Liwicki
Many people are unaware of Southeast Asian history in the Western world, although much of it was under colonial rule 200 years ago. It is perceived as so far removed, so exotic, as to be almost irrelevant to our current affairs. Consequently, people from Southeast Asia remain unacknowledged and in the periphery.
However, due to
globalisation and
decreasing space, there is a growing need to understand this society and its customs.
My grandma was born in Malaya, now known as Malaysia (and Singapore) in 1933 into a middle class, well-off family. However, she was an immediate disappointment because she was a girl. In fact, she was the second youngest of four sis- ters and two brothers, and the boys were the “pre- cious” children in this traditional Chinese family. During the early years of her life she was dressed as a boy, her hair cut short and she felt that wearing baggy masculine clothes was a mark of her failure. She very rarely talks about her childhood and I get
the
ever increasing concept of
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