On Friday 18th March fifteen students from Years 8 and 9 took part in the West Sussex Inter-schools Literature Quiz at Chichester College. This is an annual event organised by the Portsmouth Schools Library Service, where students must answer a range of general knowledge questions on children’s literature, as well as specific questions on four focus books and the authors that wrote them – this year, Mike by Andrew Norriss, Now or Never by Bali Rai, Beauty Sleep by Kathryn Evans and Lost by Eve Ainsworth.
This year the questions were particularly fiendish but our four teams put up an excellent fight, with Team C winning one of the rounds and three out of the four teams placing in the top ten overall against 20 teams in total. After a lunchbreak, the authors answered questions from the attending students on their books and writing processes, conspiracy theories and time travel!
This was the feedback from one of the Year 8s taking part: “I had an amazing day and meeting the authors brought the whole experience to life!” Mrs Regan, who led the trip said “Particularly after two years of missing out on events like this, the benefits of bringing together children to celebrate books and reading, of working in a team and of meeting authors in person are very visible. I’m really proud of the work our teams put in to prepare for the quiz, their insightful questions to the authors and the way they conducted themselves over the whole day.”
Mrs A Regan, School Librarian