BCS LitFest 2024!

BCS LitFest 2024 has been a huge success, it was such an engaging and inspiring event for all our pupils both Prep and Senior!

We were thrilled to welcome:

Tanya Landman, who shared her 'Agatha-Christie-for-kids' series, starting with 'Mondays are Murder.' Students enjoyed meeting Tanya and getting their books signed.

Karl Nova, author and rapper, who led creative workshops, signed his latest book, and wowed us by creating lyrics from 10 words given by our pupils!

Seth Burkett, celebrated author and former professional football player, who discussed his book 'The Boy in Brazil' and shared his inspiring journey.

Thank you to Tanya, Karl and Seth who inspired pupils and shared some incredible insights into their creative work process.

Please scroll to see a selection of photos from the event!

Our Head of English, Elisabeth Winwood's, take on BCS LitFest 2024:

Why LitFest when you could write an essay instead?

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.”

I’m currently spending my evenings and weekends trying (and mostly failing!) to keep up with gardening chores that just will not wait another day. The weeds keep pushing through, the radishes need thinning, the runner beans need to be planted out, and now that we finally have some semblance of a summer, everything needs watering, every day.

“Why do you like gardening?” my 9-year-old son asks. It’s a good question, and one which genuinely bewilders him. The answer is long, and not for this article, but a great part of it, of course, is seeing the journey from seed to flower, from sapling to tree. (I’m sure you might be able to see where I’m heading with this analogy!).

Teaching and gardening share a lot of similarities, not least never seeming to be quite on top of the to-do list at this time of the year. Another similarity is making peace with the unpredictable, accepting that you can follow all the right steps and get different results year on year. However, where the analogies start to diverge is when it comes to patience. Over the years that I have taught, I have noticed a steady trend in educational institutions towards valuing the measurable, the quick wins, the headline figures.

As with parenting, teaching (and gardening!), those with experience know that the greatest rewards of good husbandry are often the ones we can’t measure, and the ones which take weeks, months or even years to bear fruit. Some are not even realized in our lifetime. With current headlines focusing on yet more budget cuts in the state sector and the rising cost of living, it is no surprise that school leaders prioritise spending on resources which have a measurable impact on pupils’ outcomes. But have we lost sight of what education is really about? We are shaping and moulding our future society, and in doing so, we really must question what we want our future society to look like. Patience and long-term investment are already in decline, thanks to a society brought up on instant gratification.

So, by investing in events such as Litfest, by bringing in authors who aren’t just lighting a spark, but creating a raging inferno of inspiration in our young people, we are making a stand for the long-term investment in our future society. A society where the spoken and written word is valued as we connect with each other as human beings. A society where education aims to inspire and where enjoyment of learning is key. We may not be able to measure the impact this year, or next. We could measure the length of the queues for the book, take a dazzle-reading of the smiles, and measure the decibels of the applause, but we cannot know the true impact for those pupils sitting in the audience this week. Perhaps they’ll be the next Tanya Landman or Karl Nova, winners of awards, celebrated writers, or perhaps they’ll just have a day they will never forget. And perhaps they will become parents and teachers themselves, and will pass on the value of our literary heritage to their own children and pupils, telling them about the day they met Karl Nova or Seth Burkett. This is the impact that cannot be measured, the investment that will be giving returns long after we cease to teach.

If we are lucky, maybe we will bump into our students on a street somewhere in 30 years’ time and they will tell us that they have never forgotten that day that they wrote their first rap or laughed till their sides ached, or got that selfie with Karl. But whether they do or not, we have to trust that these trees we are planting will grow and bring life, and shade, and beauty to our society, long after we are gone.