Abingdon Carnegie Forum 2014

The joint schools' Abingdon Carnegie Forum took place today at the Guildhall. Ninety-seven students attended, from the six secondary schools. They have been avidly reading the shortlisted books nominated for the prestigious children's book award, the Carnegie Medal. This event was the culmination of 3 months of reading and reviewing.

All over the country students have been shadowing the Carnegie Medal: reading the shortlist and posting their reviews on a special website. Twelve students from OLA's Year 7 & 8 met other keen readers to discuss the books and, in ten mixed school groups, present a review of their favourite book in front of a panel of judges.

The judges had to decide which presentation would convince them to read that book, and also decided on the best book reviews. Prizes of book tokens and books were awarded. The students also voted for the Abingdon Carnegie winning book and shared a Carnegie cake.

OLA Book Review prizewinners:
Best Book Review for Rooftoppers - Ollie
Highly Commended Book Review for Blood Family- Dannan

At the end of the Forum the chair of the judges, who were from the worlds of publishing, bookselling and education, spoke about how much they had enjoyed the day. They were impressed that the award the criteria of the Medal were addressed in the reviews, the presentation of the shadowers’ own responses, whether positive or negative, and the varied vocabulary to express their opinions.

OLA Best Contributor in Group winners:
These nominations were made by the group leaders for group work during the course of the day.
Best Contributor in Group - Lizzie
Best Contributor in Group - Dannan

Group presentations, lasting no longer than four minutes, took a variety of forms from film awards to news reports and key scenes to a court room drama. The judges agreed these were of a high standard: witty, exciting, interesting to watch, involving all the students in each group, who took part enthusiastically. Hard though it was choose the judges decided that the Best Group Presentation should go to the group who presented 'The Wall' as a news report and then brought it back to the Forum itself.

Which book was voted by the shadowers as the Abingdon Carnegie Winner? It was Bunker Diary, with Ghost Hawk and All the Truth That’s in Me joint second. For the first time in the Abingdon Carnegie Forum’s history the Abingdon shadowers agreed with the CILIP Carnegie Judges about the winner.

OLA School Read: Private Peaceful

This summer holiday, with the anniversary of the start of World War I in August, I'm suggesting and recommending that OLA pupils and their families make time to read, either together or separately, Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo.

This book is worthy of a permanent place on your bookshelf at home. Suitable for 9+ to adult, it is a striking story of the First World War. Told in the voice of a young soldier, the story follows 24 hours in his life at the front during WW1, and captures his memories as he looks back over his life. Full of superbly researched detail and engrossing atmosphere, the book leads to a dramatic and moving conclusion.

Michael Morpurgo is a former Children’s Laureate and has written over 100 books, with War Horse his best known work.

If you tweet you may wish to add your comments to #OLASchoolRead when you finish the book.

This OLA School Read will be followed by a screening of the film adaptation of Private Peaceful and talk by the Producer during the OLA Festival of Reading on Wednesday 24th September 2014.