The Grange Academy have author, Pippa, pop in.

We are very pleased to award the Grange Academy (Letchworth) an award for an author visit from Pippa Goodhart (Winnie the Witch, Flow).  The visit will form part of the transition arrangements, combining the Grange’s Y3 with Y2 from their feeder infant school. 

As deputy headteacher, Nicky Murphy, explained:

“We have run a number of transition initiatives before but this year want to focus on writing and decided that an author visit/workshop would act as fantastic inspiration to engage the pupils. Following the visit, the two schools will be completing cross-phase writing which will involve joint planning, assessment and moderation.”

The Grange is in an area considered to have a high deprivation factor and they have high percentages of PP and SEN children in their two Y3 classes.  For this reason in particular, the school strives to expose children to wider life experiences they may not otherwise enjoy. 

Nicky further strengthened her bid by explaining other benefits of an author visit:

“Author visits can be hugely inspirational to help motivate our young writers who might be otherwise disengaged with the subject. When we have undertaken similar visits in the past, it has also helped to boost the number of pupils wanting to read as they want to try out the books written by the visiting author. Within the new Ofsted framework there is a huge emphasis on early reading and we believe by inviting in real life authors this can only benefit this priority.”