We began with our famous Book Bake Off. Sophie Dale in Year 7 won the Star Baker Badge for this year with her fabulous Mazerunner inspired cake, in which she constructed a maze on top of a layer of cake. In second place Maryam Jabbar wowed us with a beautiful Lorax-themed cake, and Amelia Fleet and Sophie Gallagher took third place with their brilliant ‘Mr Twit’ cake. We raised an incredible £222 for the charity ‘Read for Good.’

Throughout the week every form group worked on their ‘Open Doors’ entry, in which they were tasked with transforming their form room door into a celebration of a neurodivergent literary hero. Our doors featured books including Sherlock Holmes, Geek Girl, Matilda, Lessons in Chemistry, and A Kind of Spark. Our winning forms were 7SBA, 8CWE, 9DBI, 10CRU and 12RTR, with 8AVI receiving the Open Evening champion award. You can view the fabulous cakes and doors on our website.

One of the central elements of the festival is being able to meet some incredible authors. Years 7-10 had a virtual visit with Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of ‘Girl of Ink and Stars,’ and author and screenwriter of ‘A Kind of Spark’ Elle McNicoll joined us in person for a joyful talk about the inspiration behind her books and why representation of neurodiversity in literature is vital. Elle signed books for us in the library afterwards and stopped to chat with our students.

Alongside these events, we also had a scavenger hunt across the school to see if students could find and solve Mrs Jowett’s book-themed riddles, a screening of A Haunting in Venice, book-themed craft sessions, and the scholastic book fair. We concluded our week with a non-uniform / book character dress-up day for donations to the charity ‘Read for Good’.