Author Visits

“We read to know we are not alone.” – C. S. Lewis

Author Visits: We host visits from popular authors which are always enjoyed by pupils.  Author visits feature talks, creative workshops and Q and A sessions.  They are a fantastic opportunity to promote and encourage reading for pleasure for young people, as well as promoting reading as a lifelong skill.

Gill Lewis: We have an annual visit from Gill Lewis for ‘Sky Hawk Day’.  This is a day for Year 7, and is centred on Sky Hawk, which is the book pupils read before coming to Holy Cross, as part of our transition project.  Gill comes and does a fantastic talk for Year 7, as well as hosting brilliant writing workshops for some pupils.  Gill focuses on how she comes up with her ideas, and how she uses animals as a central part of her stories, in her books like Sky Hawk, Sky Dancer and Pup.

Matt Oldfield: In addition, we have yearly visits from the author of the ‘Ultimate Football Heroes’ books, Matt Oldfield.  These books are hugely popular with so many of our pupils and they absolutely love Matt’s talk about how he got into writing all about football!  Matt also does workshops for some of our pupils, focusing on building resilience and bouncing back from setbacks.

“The author visits are inspirational. Matt Oldfield was very engaging and answered all our questions” (Harrison, Year 9)