Stephen Kelman’s Visit

Stephen Kelman’s Visit to St’ Augustine’s on 28th February 2022

Years 10 and 11 had the privilege and pleasure of spending time with Stephen Kelman, author of our GCSE Modern Set Text Pigeon English, when he visited us in school on Monday 28th February 2022.

Stephen was interview by Miss Lynch briefly and students attentively listened to him introducing his book and its background and answering questions before Miss Lynch handed over the task of asking questions to our wonderful Year 10 and Year 11 students.

Their questions were thoughtful and showed a great appreciation of the text and its issues (including gang violence, the struggles faced by immigrants, life on estates in urban London and the death of Damilola Taylor).
As Year 10 and Year 11 enjoyed a separate assembly with Stephen, this allowed for more time for students’ questions and to hear from Stephen. As well as being a richly rewarding experience academically, it was also wonderful to see students brave the assembly and take to the microphone to pose questions.

After the school day a select group of 32 Year 11 students had an hour’s study session with Stephen and Miss Lynch in which they reviewed key symbols and points of analysis in the text with a focus on exam preparation and deepening understanding of the writer’s craft and effects of language and structural choices. This will stand them in good stead for their upcoming exams.

It is not often that students get to meet an author of a text they study, and our students thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed the visit and showed this through being a wonderful and engaged audience.