Tower and Town, November 2021 (view the full edition)Editorial5On a couple of recent occasions, when I have introduced myself as a secondary school English teacher, the response has been a shaking of the head and a comment about ‘young people nowadays’ being unable to string a sentence together because of ‘texting’ or, more vaguely, ‘technology’. I am not sure why people think this – misinformation in the media perhaps? I haven’t been an English teacher all that long, having retrained after a career in journalism and as a writer of novels, but I swiftly discovered that young people can indeed string sentences together – and so much more. Writing enjoys a high profile in lessons, and pupils at St John’s are encouraged to hone their skills writing both fiction and non-fiction. Consequently, we have a wealth of talent, and written work that is imaginative, ambitious and accomplished. The selection of work we present in this issue of Tower & Town has been written in the first few weeks of the first term of the new school year. We are still recovering from the Covid crisis and our young people have faced many challenges and uncertainties in recent months. They have, however, also proved remarkably resilient, and settled into a new school year with optimism and focus. This selection of work gives a flavour of the range of writing across the school. We have gothic writing from year 7s, speeches about revolution in the classroom (inspired by ‘Animal Farm’) from Year 9, and reviews of classic books and films by members of the sixth form – along with a selection of artwork from our recent A level students. I hope readers of Tower & Town find something to appreciate and enjoy! Sarah Singleton |