A pupil from Burley
and Woodhead CE Primary School has been selected as a winner out of nearly
300 entries from the National Literacy Trust’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s
Magical Reading Tour competition.
Ms Ross, a Year 4
teacher at Burley and Woodhead CE Primary School introduced her pupils to the
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Magical Reading Tour competition to inspire them to
read more outside of class. It led to two thirds of the class going on to
read Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s further adventures of the original Ian Fleming
story and an enthusiasm for writing and making up plays and stories at
playtimes and at home.
For the
competition’s bonus writing category, entrants were asked to write a short
story based on a story-starter by Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Eight year-old Jack’s
humorous and descriptive winning entry involves a helicopter which finds the
stolen Chitty car. He wins an eReader, book vouchers and a copy of Ian
Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang series.
Year 4 teacher Jo
Ross said:
“I read 'Chitty,
Chitty Bang Bang flies again' to my class in September and they were totally
captivated by it. The fact that the novel inspired children to write, share
stories and read in their own time is fantastic. Jack is not one of my
regular 'top' writers, so it was wonderful for him to be chosen as
winner! He was very shocked and
delighted, as was his family. Having listened to it, the class agreed it had
all the elements of a great story - good structure, excitement, humour and a
mix of dialogue and narrative.”
Jack said:
"The book was
really enjoyable and winning made me want to write more because I felt
excited, a bit nervous but it inspired me. I'm reading 'Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang race against time' at the moment - I asked for it for Christmas"
Imran Hafeez, the
National Literacy Trust’s Bradford Hub Manager says:
“The
Bradford Literacy Campaign aims to encourage children to discover the exciting
world of stories, so it’s great to hear that a Bradford kid’s story writing has
shone through in this national competition. Plus, recent research at the
National Literacy Trust has found that six out of ten boys say they don’t enjoy
writing at all, so this enthusiasm for Ian Fleming’s classic is an encouraging
sign that it can just take one book to capture a child’s imagination and get
them writing their own stories.”