7 February 2026
Mrs Ruth McKenna, Director of Studies
Our first cohort of Year 7 students to undertake the new Marden Diploma are just reaching the year one midpoint of this two-year programme, which is designed to equip them with the skills to flourish and give them an excellent academic foundation to tackle the challenges of GCSE from Year 9.
As well as refreshing our broad curriculum to ensure it offers the most interesting and engaging content, the Marden Diploma’s approach to homework is quite different: alongside weekly maths, and language learning, Year 7’s study time is focused on regular reading, which we know links to academic success, and Enquiry Projects.
The Marden Diploma Enquiry Projects provide girls with a natural way to build key success skills, including planning their time and meeting deadlines, evaluating sources, presenting work in different formats and evaluating and reviewing their work effectively. Students tackle a maximum of two projects per half term, which begin with a trip or in-school experience to spark curiosity and excitement. Students then have a choice of titles to focus their work on, allowing them to choose topics they find particularly exciting to explore in greater depth. Often, they are also given a choice of ways in which to present their work, such as essay, video piece, presentation to class.
A visit to Shakespeare’s Globe, comprising a tour and watching a performance of Twelfth Night, was the springboard for Year 7’s English project. Some students chose to write a diary account of an Elizabethan theatregoer, others to design props and costumes for a Shakespeare play and write about these, while the rest composed a new ending to A Midsummer Night’s Dream which turned it from comedy to tragedy. Year 7 also had an option project where they could choose from a range of subjects on the theme “Women who changed the world”. The most popular choices were Latin, where girls chose their favourite superwoman from the ancient world, and music, where Women Who Rock (inspirational musicians through the ages) were the focus. But there were also some beautiful pieces on NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson.
At the end of January, Year 7 had a wonderful time watching a performance of The Lion King in the West End. For their music project, the girls are now either making a video or PowerPoint presentation to introduce primary school children to eight of the many instruments used in the production; writing a song for a character from The Lion King, which would fit into the story; or writing about how elements of music in their favourite song have been used to capture and convey emotion during a key moment of a character’s life. We’re looking forward to reading, hearing and seeing the fruits of their labours.
Year 7 have also recently enjoyed a workshop led by our artist in residence to inform their art project, which you can read more about here.
As we head into the second half of year one after the half term break, Year 7 students will complete a maths and computer science project on Bletchley Park and coding. Many will already have some ideas for this following a brilliant talk from Dr Simon Singh (pictured above) early in the new year, during which the girls had the opportunity to see (and touch) a captured working World War II Enigma machine and explore some analytical and wider thinking with some puzzles. We are excited to see the work they produce.