Write Away, The TES’s own award for young writers, will be launched for the fourth year in next week’s TES, writes Heather Neill. The free Write Away 4 booklet for key stage 3 students will include new work by David Almond, Jamila Gavin, Joan Lingard and Jan Mark. And on September 21, Primary magazine will carry new pieces by Brian Patten, Karen Wallace and Jacqueline Wilson.
Fans of Write Away will know what to expect: lively pieces of autobiographical writing newly commissioned from leading children’s authors, which are supported by teaching suggestions from Angel Scott and Lorraine Dawes, members of the National Association for the Teaching of English.
When pupils have enjoyed working with the materials, they can enter their own autobiographical pieces for the Write Away 4 competition. McDonald’s Restaurants Ltd will provide 20 winners with generous cash pizes, and their schools with pound;400 towards a writer’s residency. Prizes will be presented in June 2001 at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
Lindsey Sherwin of Idsall School in Shropshire, who is the teacher of the winners of last year’s Write Away 3, wrote this summer: “The Write Away (3) booklet provided excellent stimulus material for my Year 10 GCSE group. We considered each of the pieces of writing in detail and enjoyed discussing our own memories as well as focusing our attention on the stylistic features employed.”
Nicola Lord, one of whose Year 6 pupils at Colman Middle School, Norwich, was also a winner, wrote: “I am absolutely delighted that one of my pupils has won such a prestigious award and that the whole school will benefit from a ‘writer in school session’... This competition generates much interest and enjoyment in the writing process.”
