Words! Words! Words! Let the writing begin!

Will our heroes vanquish Winterheart?

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The excitement is about to begin! Next week the children come back from the half-term holiday bright eyed, bushy tailed and ready to write.

John Dougherty our Patron of Reading will be in to encourage, inspire and write with us. Here’s where each class  will fall through the time portal in search of Winterheart:

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Let the writing begin! We’ll keep you posted!

We go to print February 2017. Publisher the History Press (Brimscombe). Book launch date June 10th 2017.

And the sun shone on the book sale!

Many thanks must go to Coralie and her friends for holding another book/bric-a-brac sale under the Market House this morning, to raise funds for our school project.

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The sun shone, lots of bargains to be had and another super amount of money has been raised.

 

It coincided brilliantly with a Minchinhampton Local History Group  minch-historical-group-logo event in the Market House.  There, Di Wall (from the Group) chatted to me about our project and has volunteered to come into school to talk to the classes about the time periods the pupils will be writing about.  This will be a fabulous opportunity for the children to ask lots of questions and learn more about the history of our town.

Excitement builds for ‘A Portal in Time’

This week the staff got together to finalise details of the project before we all begin to get writing straight after half term. Ideas began to flow, historical sources were discussed and questions were answered.  We’ve decided to give the project a working title of “A Portal in Time”…much more interesting than “The Book Project”!

We were lucky to be joined by our Patron of Reading, John Dougherty, who said he was thrilled to be involved in  such a unique and exciting project.

This project will see EVERY child in the school contribute to the book, and EVERY child represented as an artist in the Art Exhibition in the village next June (more details to follow!)

Meanwhile, don’t forget to support Coralie at the second-hand book sale tomorrow morning under the Market House.

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Village group raise money for our project

The lovely Coralie at Stafford Cottage, and her friends, have got together and raised some money for our book project, by having a second-hand book sale in the Undercroft at the Market House.

And if that is not enough, she tells me that they are going to be holding another one, on 15th October.  I have no more details yet, but feel free to call in at Stafford Cottage, or see posters around the village.

All money raised is most welcome, and will be put to very good use for the illustrating and writing of the project.

The BBC hear about our project….

…and here’s the film report which BBC Points West made when they visited the school in July of this year.  They filmed a group of pupils in the library with John Dougherty, talking about our book project and reading in general.  It was a great morning and the pupils certainly did Minchinhampton Academy proud!

Click here to view the news report

 

Stroud News and Journal attend our launch assembly

The Stroud News and Journal attended our school assembly to launch the book project last July.  During this assembly, John Dougherty, our Patron of Reading, read the opening chapter to the pupils to their delight and intrigue, inviting them to write the rest of the book themselves!  He was also able to announce the winners of the competition to name the main characters in the book.  You can find their article here.

John with the competition winners
                              John with the competition winners

 

Welcome to our exciting new Book Project!

Q:  What does a vampire, a pig, a motorbike, four children and some time portals have in common?

A: They are the key ingredients to an exciting book project which all of our pupils are writing collaboratively, alongside our Patron of Reading and reknowned children’s Author, John Dougherty.

This project aims to give our pupils the chance to be both authors and illustrators of a published book.  The project is kindly being funded & supported by many people, including fantastic financial support from the Corinium Fine Arts Society and their head office, NADFAS.

The book will go to print next Spring and be launched on June 10th 2017 in the Market House.  This will coincide with an Art Exhibition of the pupils’ illustrations for the book, alongside work from artists in the local community, which will be displayed in local shops and businesses. (More details to follow!)

Watch this space for updates and news on the project!