Story added: 21st May 2024

Premier League Primary Stars Author Day

On Friday 16th May, three primary schools from across Norfolk arrived at The Nest for Premier League Primary Stars Author Day.

The students were split into four groups and spent the school-day participating in a quartet of literacy-themed workshops. Local author Jess French provided the inspiration for the day, with her new book ‘Beast Lands’ acting as the catalyst for the day’s activities.

Jess led one of the workshops herself, conducting a 40-minute long creative writing class, where she explained her journey into writing and the importance of reading in a time where hand-held electronic devices are taking over. Jess encouraged her students to use their imagination and create the ‘weirdest, most wacky sentences’ possible as she demonstrated to the children the amount of fun that could be had through fiction writing.

The other three workshops were led by members of the Foundation’s School’s team and were positioned at various locations across The Nest site, providing the schoolchildren with a wide scope of exciting literacy-based activities to participate in.

The Challenge Woods played host to the first of these, with the students tasked with exploring the ‘treetop terrain’ in an attempt to find ‘Beast Lands’ inspired clues to complete a worksheet puzzle.

Over on the 3G pitches, Head of Schools Asa Saunders led a team-building challenge, seeing the group of students split into four teams, before they used a variety of hoops and balls in a bid to reach the central ‘island’ before their competitors.

The final workshop was hosted in The Nest’s Inspire room and had a particular focus on ‘fact-finding’. A box of Norwich City matchday programmes were distributed amongst the schoolchildren, with each student tasked with scouring the pages of the programme looking for the answers to a list of twenty questions about previous games and players.

Author Day was concluded with a quick-fire Q&A with Jess French, before the budding literacy lovers were given the chance to offer both the author and the Foundation staff their feedback on the day at The Nest. The general positive feeling of ‘inspiration’ was reinforced with delighted cheers when each student was presented with a signed copy of ‘Beast Lands’ to take home with them.

Asa Saunders, Head of Schools at the Foundation said this about last week’s event:

“The Author Day, in partnership with the National Literacy Trust and the Premier League, provided us with a great opportunity to inspire 100 pupils to become motivated to read more.

It was great to welcome Jess French; the author of Beastlands, to help inspire the pupils with her imagination and creativity.”

Thank you to Barnham Broom, Rackheath and Tuckswood Primary Schools for attending.