Literacy Comes To Life
25/06/2022
The pupils here at Burnage Academy have had an inspiring month of literacy!
We have been offered many wonderful opportunities to listen to and work with some of Manchester’s home-grown talent; from award-winning novelists to international rock n roll stars!
During Empathy Week 2022, Manchester libraries linked us with author Sue Cheung. Sue wrote the award winning novel ‘Chinglish’ and Ms Seton’s year 9 class thoroughly enjoyed her humorous, yet traumatic, childhood stories about growing up in a Chinese take-away in the 1980s. It was an engaging, thought-provoking presentation and reminded us all that reading encourages us all to be more empathetic.
Further into June, author AM Dassu, presented to a year 8 class about her latest teen novel, Fight Back. The discussion incorporated crucial themes such as identity, culture and being an ally; all really important skills to be a caring member of the community!
As part of Manchester’s Festival of Libraries, Children’s author Oliver Sykes, came into school to deliver some fantastic writing workshops with a group of our most enthusiastic readers. Several workshops culminated in a performance at Central Library in Manchester City Centre, where they had the opportunity to show-case some of their own writing on stage, with a microphone. They all thoroughly impressed everyone with their courage and talent. Well done boys and thank you Oliver!
We were also invited to Central Library, by Aziz Ibrahim, a British musician and Ex-Burnage boy. Aziz is a guitarist and has worked with internationally acclaimed bands such as The Stone Roses and Simply Red. He gave an awe-inspiring lecture to our year 9 pupils all about his life; from growing up in Longsight, to travelling the world and performing to enormous crowds of 100,000 +. He even played his guitar for us! A true, relatable inspiration, and a reminder to always follow your dreams.
Finally, thank you to Read Manchester, for providing us with enough of Marcus Rashford’s new book, ‘You are a Champion’, for a whole year group. This is going to be a very inspiring read and a wonderful gift for our pupils here at Burnage!