Joffre ran workshops for groups of pupils in (new) Years 9 and 10 and also met with a group of budding authors at break time. One of our visiting (new) Year 7 pupils, Oliver, was delighted to discover on his second Induction Day that Joffre was visiting Deer Park and declared that Joffre was his ‘favourite author’, so a meeting was hastily arranged.

This term the English Faculty have launched a new initiative which involves pupils in Years 7-10 completing regular fortnightly creative writing in new smaller books that will travel up the school with them. This came about after some Key Stage 3 pupils interviewed as part of a 'pupil voice' activity said that they missed the opportunities they had at primary school to write creatively. Narrative and Descriptive writing is now worth 25% of the new GCSE English Language and so it is very important that pupils build confidence, as well as having practice at self-editing their own writing.

As part of English Faculty in Focus, which takes place in December, Joffre will be visiting school again and also launching and judging a writing competition for pupils. We look forward to seeing him later this year.

Check our lists of suggested Summer Reading.