Student Led Event with Teresa Flavin
On Monday 29 July a team of ten year 8 and 9 students from Allerton High School welcomed Leeds based author and illustrator Teresa Flavin and 35 pupils from local primary schools for an event they had organised themselves – with a little help from Ilkley Literature Festival.
Dawn Cameron, our audience development and outreach officer, supported the group of book loving students over several months to plan and deliver the event for pupils in years 5 and 6 from Alwoodley, Wigton Moor, Allerton C of E and Brodetsky primary schools. The day began with a talk by Teresa about her work – as well as illustrating dozens of books, Teresa is the author of novels including The Blackhope Enigma and The Crimson Shard.
Labyrinths and mazes play a big role in several of Teresa’s books and have long been a source of inspiration for her, so following the talk the pupils used one of Teresa’s maps to create a character and a series of obstacles for them to tackle on their journey through the labyrinth to safety. They then used carefully folded paper to create a concertina book in which to tell their character’s story.
Although Teresa’s talk and workshop were great and the primary school pupils had wonderful ideas for their stories (including a wizard who had been turned in to a crab and must face hungry sushi chefs on his quest to be turned back!) the real stars of the day were the student team from Allerton High. The team organised a very smooth and professional event – as well as arranging for Teresa and the primary schools to be there, they also created lovely posters, welcomed everyone, introduced Teresa, provided juice and snacks for the children (tea and biscuits for the adults), took pictures and even ran a post event evaluation session!
A huge well done and thank you to all of them.
If you are interested in working with Ilkley Literature Festival to deliver a similar student led event, please contact Dawn Cameron.
Support the Festival!