The National Skills Challenge

Taking part in extracurricular activities such as this helps the development of confidence, determination and leadership of an individual, thus aiding growth of character of the students who choose to take part.

Whilst I do think we learnt some essentials and fundamentals about how marketing a product works, I also believe the most important skills one can always take away from activities such as the National Skills Challenge are the ones that are needed throughout one’s whole life, no matter which path they end up following. We learnt many transferable skills.

Lastly, I am happy my team and I decided to join the National Skills Challenge for the day because we ended up having a lot of fun!

Anna – F5

Songwriting Workshop

I had decided to attend the songwriting workshop not only because I am a BTEC Music student, but also because I was genuinely intrigued to learn how to write and compose songs. Provided one of the units on my BTEC Music course required me to write a song, this workshop was extremely useful. About 30 students attended this event, all of which I assume have a strong interest and passion for music.

The visitors for this workshop included Grammy Nominated singer Becki Biggins and her trio – a pianist and a drummer. The event began at 1:30pm where we were given a brief introduction on how to write songs and explored the different features that make a good song. We all contributed with our own ideas by reflecting on our personal favourite songs and what, in particular, made them good. Eventually, we gathered a list of the features: a repetitive beat, meaningful lyrics which tell an emotional story, a good sense of harmony, a well-structured song and most importantly, a simple and distinguishable melody that gets stuck in your head.

After the introduction with the criteria in mind, we were split into groups of 4-6 members and were given time to come up with 2 lines of a song as a starter activity. 2 lines may seem insignificant but I can assure you that it was an incredibly tough thing to do, especially when you have no direction and absolute no clue on the whole song you are going to write about. Singer-songwriter Becki Biggins assisted us and funnily enough, she simply took one of our school folders, flipped to a random page and picked the phrase, ‘distance travelled’. We finally conquered our songwriting block and came up with ideas based upon that chosen phrase. On top of this, we came up with a tune to go with the lyrics by messing around with simple chords on the piano. With a basic tune and minimal lyrics, we managed to write our own song and consequently had the opportunity to perform the song we had composed within the 2 hours, to the whole group. It was a really enjoyable and fun experience to both perform, as well as listen to what the other groups had composed too.

Following the performances, we gathered in a circle and had a quick Q&A session with the artist and her trio, where we were able to ask them any questions regarding their career and how they got into the music industry etc. The main message that I received from this session was that while it is undeniably tough and time consuming to break into the music industry, it is not an impossible thing to do if you simply have the passion and the will to work hard.

Finally, we all merged and wrote another song together. Within an hour, we had a distinct idea of the lyrics and the melody, by combining a sprinkle of imagination and creativity. We all contributed to the final performance with our independent roles. Some were in charge of singing the harmonies; some were responsible for playing the instruments. With help from the pianist, I had a go at playing and improvising the chords on the piano, and the song we had composed together (if you ask me) ended up being a great success! Although the songwriting workshop lasted about 4 hours, I had such a fun time and it was undoubtedly a Wednesday afternoon well spent.

Rachael – F5

The Oxford MFL Event

“You can never understand a language until you can understand at least two.”– Geoffrey Williams

“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” – Frank Smith

“Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.”– H.Jackson Brown, Jr

Over the course of my life, I have discovered numerous benefits of being multilingual. As someone who is competent in speaking four languages, I have found that being multilingual not only helps me when I’m in other countries, but also opens doors and opportunities in my own country.

With young people from all over the world, the Concord community is a diverse place where most students here are in fact bilingual. In Concord, The Modern Languages department offers a vibrant teaching in French, German, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese.

On the 27th of September, our school held a ‘MFL Workshop’ in the theatre. Not only were the college’s MFL students invited, but many students from other schools situated in Shrewsbury also attended the event. The 3 hour event on the Wednesday afternoon was jam-packed with information about learning languages in A-Levels, majoring a degree in a language, the variety of job opportunities provided for a language student, the different courses in university that are catered for language students, as well as the general benefits of learning a foreign language. It was definitely an eye-opening experience, especially when we were given an Italian lecture by the Oxford presenter. After the presentation we were also split into teams according to our year group and the language we had chosen for a mini interactive session with the respective teacher.

By the end of the workshop, I had gathered a whole new perspective on MFL, a detailed insight on the transition between A-Levels and university, along with a deeper understanding of the benefits entitled to a language student.

Not only is learning foreign languages fun, I think everyone should have the chance to learn a second language, reap the benefits of being bilingual, and fire your endeavour towards the epitome of your abilities!