World Book Week and Author visits
Every year, Kineton High School invites an author to visit the school and speak to students about reading, writing and a love of storytelling.
In 2023 Dan Freedman visited to talk about his books around a football loving secondary student called Jamie Johnson.
Then in 2024 Mark Walden came to Kineton to talk about his H.I.V.E series and how he writes and interweaves stories into video games too.
In 2025 we had Stephen Kelman visit the school to discuss his book Pigeon English, which is also the GCSE contemporary text studied for the English Literature GCSE. It was fantastic to watch Y10 and Y11 glean as much information as they could from the author and to look at his motivations for fictionalising and telling the story of Damilola Taylor, a 10-year-old who was murdered on a Peckham estate in 2000. Finally, Wren James visited us to discuss how they like to focus on writing novels around Science Fiction, these novels have included the Loneliest Girl in the Universe (which is being developed by MGM studios into a feature film) and more recently Last Seen Online which was released in August 2024. The author visit with Wren James also included a book signing whereby over 40 students paid to have a copy of one of Wren’s books which they could then take home and read.
Finally, we also like to promote oracy and students have participated in a no pen day, whereby they are encouraged to listen, discuss and challenge each other’s ideas.
All our literacy events aim to help students eventually prepare for two English GCSES (Language and Literature) but ultimately to inspire a lifetime love for reading and writing.
