A successful cultural trip to London for our Sixth Form pupils who are studying Spanish...  

On Wednesday, our Sixth Form Spanish pupils headed to London with Sr Gordon and Srta Fernández for a day of Spanish culture to celebrate International Women’s Day. The main event was to see a performance of LA CASA DE BERNARDA ALBA by Federico García Lorca, a powerful play with an all-female cast that explores themes such as women’s rights, desire and repression in 1920s Spain. We braved some very inclement weather on our way to Richmond, where we parked and took the train to Waterloo, before walking up to the Southbank Centre, dodging puddles wherever possible (‘charco’, or ‘puddle’, became one of our words of the day!). After a whistlestop tour of the Southbank Centre, we went up to the National Poetry Library, where we sourced and read from collections by Lorca, as well as important female Spanish-language poets, such as Gabriela Mistral and Silvina Ocampo. From there, we went to Mesón Don Felipe, opposite The Young Vic, a London tapas institution. The girls ordered all the food in Spanish and chatted with the native staff, and we enjoyed berenjenas fritas con miel (aubergine fritters with honey), pimientos de Padrón, jamón serrano and of course plenty of paella. The play itself - staged at the Cervantes Theatre in Southwark - was brilliantly acted and highly dramatic, and provoked plenty of discussion amongst the pupils. The return journey was a long one, but the whole trip was a real success and a memorable experience for our Hispanists!

Sam Gordon - MFL Teacher

Watch a video the pupils filmed: