These children from Years 5 & 6 successfully completed the

UK Junior Mathematics Trust Challenge

They showed the values of:

Perseverance

Resilience

FANTASTIC EFFORT!

We are all so proud of Poppy for making it through to round two of BBC Radio 2's 500 Words competition. Over 135,000 children entered and Poppy made it through to the next 5,000 children with her story, The Zebra who steals the Queen Giraffe's Crown. Her story was a delight to read and the judges clearly thought so too!

Ask an Author Competition 

Award Winning Children's Author - Katherine Rundell

Have you always wanted to be an author? Aneesa 6CD

Yes! I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I knew books were made by people and didn’t just appear, like sunlight or oxygen. I started writing stories when I was about six or seven and never stopped.

Why didn’t you write adult books, why children’s books? Runtendo 5SP

I think children are the best readers - the books you read while you’re young get under your skin and stay with you forever. And I think children are the most utterly ruthless critics - they won’t laugh if the joke isn’t funny - so I think it’s a real challenge to try to get it right.

Which of your books is your favourite and why? Sabah 5SP

That’s such a hard question! I think I love parts of all of them - I loved writing the rooftop feasts in Rooftoppers - and the tiny wolf pup in The Wolf Wilder - but most of all I loved writing the character of the Explorer in The Explorer.

Where do you get the inspiration for your stories? Melissa 6CD, Bakhteyar 6EB, Taran 6EB

From everywhere! Sometimes I go searching for ideas - I went to the Amazon jungle to find the story for The Explorer, and going husky sledding in the Arctic Circle helped a lot with The Wolf Wilder - but sometimes ideas come at you, without warning - so I always make sure I have something with me to make notes on. Ideas are slippery things, and they can disappear if you don’t catch them in time and write them down.

What was the first book you ever wrote and what was it about? Carla 5SP

The first book I ever had published was called The Girl Savage. It’s about a girl who lives half-wild in Africa, in Zimbabwe, until she has to go to England and to boarding school. She hates it, so she breaks out of the bathroom window and breaks into the monkey enclosure at London Zoo. But the first book I ever wrote was when I was about six - it was called Sally’s Surprise and it was uniquely unexciting. There was no plot, just a lot of descriptions of horses.