Summer Workshops: 11+ Creative Writing and GCSE Unseen Poetry
Summer holidays are long, and by mid-August the days start to blur.
This is a good moment for the kind of English work that rarely fits into term time; writing something for the fun of it, sitting with a poem long enough to actually enjoy it. Charles, one of our Professional Mentors, is running two small-group online workshops in the first week of August that do exactly that.
11+ Creative Writing and Poetry
Years 5 and 6
For students going into Year 5 or 6, this course builds creative writing and poetry analysis across five hour-long sessions.
3–7 August | Online | 10–11am | £375 + VAT for five 60-minute sessions
Sessions cover:
Epic settings - vivid description and building comprehension confidence
Awesome characters - cloze reading practice and inventing memorable characters
Structuring stories - more advanced comprehension, and opening your own story
Where to start with poetry? - key poetic techniques and how to use them
Building confidence in poetic analysis - advanced techniques and group poetry writing
These aren't ISEB drill sessions. They're built around making stories and poems interesting first, with the comprehension and technique work folded in.
GCSE English Bootcamp: Tackling Unseen Poetry
Unseen poetry is the paper students dread most. There's no revision to fall back on - just a poem you've never met and forty minutes to say something intelligent about it. This bootcamp is designed to make that moment feel manageable.
3–7 August | Online | £565 + VAT for five 90-minute sessions
Sessions cover:
Reading - taking the fear out of the first read
Language - spotting language devices
Analysis - analysing a poem's structure
Form - how to talk about poetic form to an examiner
Comparison - comparing poems, their language, tempo and meaning
Both courses run in small groups, so students work alongside a handful of other mentees rather than in a crowd.
Registering
Places are limited. If you'd like to register your child for either course, get in touch with your Client Manager or email enquiries@oppidaneducation.com.