Four-leafed clover…the story’s nearly over!

Wow, so much has happened since our last post! Hard work, actual fake blood during the Saxon-Viking battle and tears of joy as we handed our chapters over, on a velvet cushion, to John in assembly, to a trumpet fanfare!  Cerys W says, “I found it really fun trumpeting in front of John.”


He worked hard, pulling together all the strands from our chapters into his final scene.  The last chapter hasn’t been presented to the school yet…it’s going to remain secret until the final day when the book is launched….Isabelle H says, “Even WE don’t know the ending yet!

John with the winners of the ‘Blurb’ competition

To help the pupils with character illustrations, Tom Percival (children’s illustrator and author) came to school and held a drawing workshop for us.  Isabelle H says, “He really inspired us to push ourselves to the limit on what we can do. He gets all the details, even on the eyebrows!”

The book, along with the illustrations, were delivered to the publishers (The History Press in Brimscombe) last week.  The publishers were very excited to receive the manuscript and they have praised us for the very high quality of the work.

 

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.

patron-of-reading-logo

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!