The Manor Prep – Essay Competition
25 Jun 2013
Every year the girls in Y6 take part in The Manor Essay Competition and this year’s title was “Precious”. All of the girls wrote their stories and local author, Linda Newbery, judged the essays. The interpretations of the title were very exciting and many were very moving, no more so than the winner’s, Helen W. Helen wrote bravely and beautifully about her father and her happy memories of him. Helen’s writing was full of description and similes but the metaphor of her life being like a ball of string with a few knots along the way was remarkable and had many of us reaching for hankies. Helen described the time that her father died as the time when her string became a tangled mess but every happy memory helps her to untangle her string. I hope that today helped in some small way. It was truly wonderful to see Helen and her mum in assembly as she received her certificate, signed book and applause. Linda spoke extremely highly about Helen’s talent as an author as well as her strength as a person.
Linda Newbery explained how difficult it was to choose just one winner when the standard was so high. After many hours of judging over half term, Linda chose Helen W as the winner, Chloe H and Hetty M as runners up and insisted on having three highly commended essays from Flora W, Sophie I and Amy W.
Linda read extracts from many stories and urged us to keep going and keep writing. I hope that many of you will. The essays of the winner and two runners-up will appear in Manorisms next term. If any of you are looking for some holiday reading, Linda writes beautifully and has books suitable for all ages. I’m going to choose at least three for my Summer reading. Please visit Linda’s website for further details: http://www.lindanewbery.co.uk/
Well done to all who entered. The standard of writing at The manor is exceptional and Linda was quite taken aback by the high quality of work and sophistication. I’m lucky. I get to read their work every day!
Russell King
Head of English