Reading Festival at King’s Ely goes down a storm with students

Author visits, creative writing competitions and challenging literary quizzes resulted in King’s Ely’s Reading Festival being celebrated in style.

The school’s annual Reading Festival is organised to tie in with World Book Day and sees King’s Ely Junior and King’s Ely Senior students from Years 3 right the way through to 13 enjoying a week-long extravaganza of literary orientated events and activities.

This year, the festival kicked off with a celebration evening to announce the winners of the King’s Ely Writing Competition. Students in Years 4 through to 13 put pen to paper and the winners from each year group read out their winning pieces to fellow pupils, teachers, staff and families. Author Julian Sedgwick attended the ceremony to talk about his life as a writer and congratulate the students on their efforts. The Year 4 winner was Lily Jones, the Year 5 winner was Freddie Nearney and Aoife won the Year 6 category. Evie Hall won the Year 7 category, Ella Pickles won the Year 8 category and the winners of the Year 9 category were Miya Cundy and Richard Garrard. Florence Morgan won the Year 10 category and the winner of the Sixth Form category was Francis Raynes. The winners and runners-up in each category received certificates and a prize from Julian Sedgwick.

The Reading Festival itself was jam-packed with activities, including author visits, tutor group competitions, book swaps and pop-up book stalls. One of the highlights of the week was Drop Everything and Read, in which students read ‘Green Ray’, a story by Julian Sedgwick about a teenage girl and her adventures during the Second World War, commissioned especially for the festival by the school.