In 2016 I visited Park High School, Colne and had a fantastic afternoon with a group of Year 9 pupils. It was lovely to return to work with students from Year 7 and 8.
The morning started with a session involving a group of Year 7 students. The pupils had been looking at story openings so we looked at creating a character-focused opener that could be used in one of my Tales. It featured a nasty character called Bazza and the pupils created lots of ideas, both as a group and individually. I even put on the storytelling waistcoat to create another version. After catching my breath I repeated the session with another group of Y7s. They matched the first group and generated lots of ideas for their openers. It was an absolute joy to work with both groups of Y7 students.
After break, the morning ended with a workshop with some of the Y8 pupils. We looked at Blown Away, a short story from Impossible Tales. I shared some extracts and got the pupils up to speed with the characters and plot. We then focussed on the ending and the pupils created alternative versions, bullet pointing their ideas. Unfortunately, time beat us so the students went on their way to complete the two paragraphs in their own time. Hopefully I’ll get to share examples on here.
Thanks must go to Mrs Pearson and Mrs Jones for organising the visit. I had a great morning and thoroughly enjoyed my time at Park High.