The creative writing talents of primary school children have been showcased through a competition organised by a secondary school.
Thurston Community College, near Bury St Edmunds, invited Year 5 and 6 students from primary schools across Suffolk to put pen to paper and get creative by entering its festive writing competition.
Students were asked to create either a short story, poem or comic strip with the title ‘The Unexpected Gift’.
All the finalists. Picture: Thurston Community College
Sarah Webdale, transition co-ordinator and English teacher, launched the competition in order to both showcase the wealth of young talent in the area and to bring like-minded students together to celebrate their hard work.
Abigail and Mia from Thurston CE Primary Academy were the Year 6 winner and runner up respectively and Sophie from Ixworth CE Primary School and Joseph from Bardwell Primary School were the Year 5 winner and runner up.
Mrs Webdale said: “We have been so incredibly impressed by all of the entries, which show some real flair, evidenced by the enthusiastic responses from our audience at the awards ceremony.”
Left to right, Mia and Abigail, the Year 6 runner-up and winner. Picture: Thurston Community College
The four winning and commended entrants from Year 5 classes and four from Year 6 were invited to an awards ceremony in the community college’s library in the final week of term where they were met by a team of junior prefects offering hot chocolates, festive treats and lots of ideas to develop their writing skills.
The junior prefects also helped both the children and the supporting adults to piece together poems out of fragments of well-known verse scattered across their tables.
Everybody then settled down to hear the work of all eight children read aloud by their host alongside Alex Baker, assistant principal in charge of Key Stage 3, and Thurston Community College principal Maéve Taylor.
“We are always delighted to work with our local primary schools and their students and are often wowed by their talents and skills,” said Ms Taylor. “Welcoming these students, and their families, into the college to celebrate these creative writing achievements was a great end to our term. We are particularly excited because we know these students will join us in the future and we will see them continue to develop these wonderful skills.”
Abigail, the Year 6 winner, was accompanied by a very proud mum who spoke of the moment they found out that she had won: “She was totally shocked and over the moon! I had to read Mrs Webdale’s email twice as well! … We are proud of her, she worked hard on it.”
Invitees went home with certificates and prizes, including Waterstones vouchers for the two winners to further spark their imaginations and encourage their writing.
Mrs Webdale hopes that this festive celebration of creative writing will be repeated in the Thurston Community College library in the future.
She said: “We’re so excited to see what the future holds for our local young authors, whether they’re penning stories, poems or comic strips; we look forward to seeing more next year.
“Our library was abuzz with eager voices at the awards ceremony; we hope that some of our entrants might eventually see their own work on our shelves one day!”