We had an author, Alexander Gordon Smith, visit BPS to give the Year 7’s a presentation and to run some creative writing workshops in English classes to Yr 7, Yr9 and Yr10. It was a fantastic day and BPS students did us proud by welcoming Gordon (he likes to be called Gordon, not Alex) and engaging in his presentation and workshops. The genre was about horror writing and students completed worksheets by thinking about their biggest fears and What If? Scenarios to start their writing off. We also thought about characters for our horror stories. It was a lot of fun and enjoyed by all.

As part of our Education through football literacy group, the Learning Mentor department had guest speaker, ex Chelsea player Paul Canoville, talk about his football career to a group of 9 boys. Since January, they have been learning about the history of Stamford Bridge through a book called Billy the Kid, about a Chelsea player who had to go and fight in WW2. In preparation for Paul’s visit, the boys wrote a Paul Canoville Life Story play script, and acted out a scene from his childhood. During Paul’s visit, he followed on from this with his experience of being Chelsea’s first black player and overcoming racism from his own club’s supporters. The talk was very inspirational and the boys had lots of questions to ask Paul - everything from his decision to become a footballer, to the wages he earned at the time!