Literacy Festival Ends With a Special Celebration

The Literacy Festival is a new event for us this year. Pupils have represented their school in a range of literacy competitions since September. They have developed important literacy skills such as reading, spelling and vocabulary, debating, presenting and pitching. Competitions and events have included:

• Read around the World Competition
• Book Clubs
• The Spelling Bee
• Envision Social Action Programme
• Jack Petchey’ Speak Out
• Debate Mate

Participating in these events through the year earned pupils their place at the festival celebration at Haberdashers’ Hall on 15 July. We were joined by a number of writers, poetsand novelists who facilitated workshops for our pupils,  inspiring them to unleash their literary passion to get creative and imaginative. Our facilitators were:

• Laurie Bolger - Poet, writer and presenter
• Christian Foley - Writer, poet, rapper and a teacher
• Charlotte Hume - News broadcaster and media consultant
• Ashley Hickson-Lovence - Poet, novelist, university lecturer and former school teacher
• Joshua Idehen - Poet and musician
• Bella Cox - Poet and musician

The final Literacy competition for the year took part on the day. Four pupils, one from each of our secondary schools, took part in the Jack Petchey ‘Speak Out’  competition. Pupils voted for who they thought gave the best speech, on a topic of their choosing. Congratulations to Jayden from Haberdashers’ Knights Academy, who emerged as lead speaker for his piece on ‘Patience’. Over lunch, pupils continued to enjoy more literacy activities and resources in the Literacy Market.

The day finished with an impressive freestyle rap by Christian Foley, to showcase the importance of literacy. The final line was delivered by Haberdashers’ Slade Green Primary pupil, Jay – a keen rapper himself. It was a wonderful way to see out our first Literacy Festival and shine a light on the successes of our pupils.

Thank you to everyone involved in helping make literacy fun and exciting throughout the year.

Watch our highlight video for a flavour of the day's event:

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