In our English lessons, we have been reading The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.

After reading the poem, we discussed the key events. We spent time summarising the main ideas from the poem and participated in discussions about the key characters in the poem: Bess, Tim the ostler, the soldiers and The Highwayman. We considered their thoughts and motives from their actions, justifying our inferences with evidence.

We were then put into four groups: a group who were detectives investigating Beth’s death; a group of ostlers; a group of The Highwayman and a group of soldiers. We considered carefully the investigative questions the detectives might ask. The detective interviewed each character to work out what had happened on the night of Bess’s death and see who was responsible. We used our spoken language to develop our understanding through hypothesising and speculation.