Thank you Miss Dodds
While many schools closed their libraries this year, Miss Dodds has gone above and beyond to ensure that students have had access to brilliant books throughout lockdown and back in school. Sharing online reading resources, virtual author talks and events for students to access at home; managing bubbles in the discovery space, quarantining books and continuing to stock the library with new and exciting literature for all students. Today was yet another exciting opportunity organised for our students to highlight the importance and enjoyment we at Winston take in reading for pleasure. MISS Dodds is already busy planning events for the Autumn term, so keep an eye on the school calendar for more exciting opportunities like this.
Winston Book Awards & Author Visit
Wednesday 14th
July
We were very fortunate on Wednesday 14th July to
be able to hold our first in-person author visit for over a year due to
Coronavirus! Sufiya Ahmed, author of books such as ‘Secrets of the Henna Girl’
and ‘My Story: Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan’, joined us to give a talk to 80 Year
7 students in the hall, along with a code-breaking workshop for a smaller group
of Year 7s in the Library. She also co-hosted the very first Winston Book
Awards with Miss Dodds. The students were very excited at the prospect of
having a ‘real-life’ author in school!!
Sufiya started off her day with talking to Year 7 about her
journey to becoming an author and her jobs before she started writing. She used
to work in government and even worked alongside former Prime Minister Gordon
Brown! She then went on to tell them all about the story of Noor-un-Nissa
Inayat Khan GC, a British spy in World War 2 who served under Winston Churchill
as a Special Operations Executive. A lot of the students hadn’t heard of her,
but Sufiya told us that she actually played quite a big role in History as she
was the first female wireless operator to be sent from the UK into France to
aid the French Resistance during the war. She was captured after being betrayed
and later executed at a concentration camp. Noor was posthumously awarded the
George Cross for her service in the SOE, which is one of the highest awards
given for services to Britain.
The students found it really interesting to hear about
someone who had been chosen by Winston Churchill as a spy in the war. It was
lovely to see them engaging in an author visit, something that is a little
different to the other opportunities they’ve had so far this school year.
Several students along to the Library at lunchtime after being inspired by the
author talk to purchase a signed copy of Sufiya’s book! We have a couple of
signed copies in the Library if you didn’t manage to come and buy one.
After the talk, we headed over to the Library where Sufiya led a code-breaking workshop with a different group of Year 7 students. The students became spies for the session, trying to crack the different codes in order to complete the mission for Noor. It was great to see students working with peers who they maybe had not worked with before and they all worked hard together to complete the task set. Sufiya was also on hand to provide support to those that needed a few more hints to complete the mission – some of them were quite tricky! Well done to the students who took part for showing resilience, ingenuity, and teamwork skills!
At the start of the term, students nominated books for
different categories such as Best Fiction, Best Autobiography, Future
Classic and Most Inspirational Read. A group of Year 9 students then worked
with Miss Dodds over a number of weeks to create a shortlist for the awards. At
the event on Wednesday, we awarded the books that had won each category. These
books will be marked in the Library so that students know they have won an
award in the Winston Book Awards. Miss Dodds also gave out some student awards
for things such as Most Borrowed Books and Student Librarian of the
Year. Well done to the winners noted below, they all took home a
certificate, a copy of Sufiya’s book and a copy of a book nominated for one of
the award categories.
Creative Writing Award (selected by Mr Collins & Miss
Elfaituri): Daniel W and Amy C (Year 10)
Avid Reader Award: Jacob D (Year 8)
Reading Achievement (selected by the Learning Support
Team): Jasmine (Year 7)
Student Librarian of the Year: Fern and Lucy H (Year 8)
Most Borrowed Books: Amala (Year 7)
Speaking to the students after the event, they seemed to
really enjoy the whole experience, and liked being able to ask the author
questions such as ‘Why did you want to write about Noor’s story?’ and ‘What
books have inspired you?’.
Thank you to all students who engaged in the day with
confidence, respect, and enthusiasm. A huge thank you to Sufiya Ahmed for
visiting our school and working with our students. Miss Dodds can’t wait to
hold more author events for other year groups in the near future… watch this
space!
