Chairman Rob Shepherd and board member Claire Allen took a look at a fresh stock of books and academic resources made available to students as a result of the festival’s funding.
‘In celebrating literature in all its many forms, the Literary Festival promotes a love of reading, enabling the Guernsey public to experience a range of diverse voices,’ said Mr Shepherd.
‘We are delighted to support the Sixth Form Centre by taking this experience right inside the walls of the centre, and particularly its library.’
The library now has a new selection of books for designated areas of the curriculum, as well as a variety of literature intended to support students’ wider reading, including for pre-university reading lists.
‘To be able to do this, to really give the students everything they need for their courses, is just fantastic,’ said librarian Dallas Courtenay-Warren.
‘We know that reading more widely fosters essential skills like independent research, vocabulary expansion, and empathy, as well as providing an enjoyable escape from daily stress.’
The partnership between the festival and the Sixth Form Centre extends beyond the library, with both institutions making particular efforts at collaboration this year in the National Year of Reading.
Students from the Sixth Form Centre have also been given the opportunity to volunteer at Literary Festival events, such as helping out with author signings, which will enable them to have more direct contact with the speakers and the festival.
‘It can be a lovely experience for them – real-life experiences like these really matter,’ said Mrs Courtenay-Warren.
In addition, one of the festival’s authors, Margaret MacDonald, will be coming in to the Sixth Form Centre to speak to students, and the Literary Festival has been in talks with both the centre and other schools about how they can get young people involved with the festival in the future.
‘It’s great to have young people involved with coming up with ideas for the programming, so we can see what they’re really interested in,’ said Ms Allen.
As well as discussing further youth involvement, the festival is also set to donate book bundles to secondary schools around the island, and to the hospital, a new community bookshelf at Guernsey Airport, and in local care homes.
Further promoting school’s interaction with the festival, it is also continuing to host the annual WriteStuff competition, in which students of all ages around the Bailiwick are invited to submit a short, 300-word story on a given theme, with this year’s being ‘The Letter’.
The stories are judged by a panel of professional authors, and the competition champions will gain both a cash prize and a bespoke illustration of their story.
‘We had one student who went on to study literature at university and is hoping to be a journalist, and she said that it was the competition that really made her realise her love of writing,’ said Ms Allen.
Submissions for the competition will close on 6 March, and the Literary Festival are hopeful that they will, as last year, receive submissions from all schools within the Bailiwick.
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