Y7 Alan Gibbons visit - December 2019

For many years, the English department has collaborated with the well-known and popular author of teenage fiction, Alan Gibbons, who came to work with our Year 7 students on 3rd December.

Alan has proved very popular with our students in past years as he is an inspiring and entertaining speaker as well as an excellent teacher of story writing.

Kyan B (S10) wrote:

During periods 3 and 4 Alan Gibbons impressed all the Year 7s with his outstanding writing skills, which he taught us whilst we were writing a ghost story.  Alan described what he would write and then we did similar.

Having published 74 books, Alan Gibbons is a well-known author, with tales like ‘Shadow of the Minotaur’ and ‘The Number 7 Shirt’.  Alan takes his writing seriously but still managed to make us all giggle.  Once the stories were finished, Alan answered our questions so that Year 7s could get to know him more.  Overall Alan impressed us massively and brought joy to everyone.  5/5 stars.  Not a single person didn’t laugh, feel happy or be inspired by a great role model.  Everyone loved him.

Gemma K (M04) wrote:

On Tuesday, 3rd December, the whole of Year 7 were lucky enough to have Alan Gibbons visit the school – and we would spend the whole morning with him!  We arrived in the hall to find Alan standing at the front of the hall.  Once we were all settled he started his talk, introducing himself and telling us about his childhood, relatives and all about when he became an author.

He told us about all of his awards and about the time he was nominated for a Blue Peter book award and when his name was read out that he had won, he spat his water all over the celebrity next to him!  He also told us about the time he was teaching and he heard footsteps, so he crept out to catch what he thought would be a student, only to find the Headmaster making the noise.

I really enjoyed it; it was so interesting to find out about his amazing life experiences and brilliant books.  He was so funny, I couldn’t stop laughing from start to finish!  I really liked his funny impressions, like his hilarious London accent impression – it definitely kept me engaged and interested the whole way through.  It never got boring listening to his hysterical impressions and extremely eventful stories!  I am so glad that he came now.  It is something I will remember for a long time - I will think about Year 7 and I will think about this amazing visit!