We offer several after-school clubs where students can explore a love of reading and literacy. These include the Hooked-on-Books reading club and the First Story creative writing club.

Professional author Paula Rawsthorne has been working with The Bulwell Academy since October 2022 to help our students write and publish their own book of stories and poems. We also take part in the Poetry By Heart competition, with students encouraged to learn and recite their favourite poems, possibly winning a chance to perform at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

Recent literacy trips have included visits to Newnham College (University of Cambridge), Nottingham Trent University and Bromley House Library, where students had the opportunity to work with professional authors and poets, including Elly Griffiths, Jim Hall, Darren Simpson, Manjit Sahota, Andrew Graves and Kerry Drewery.

Our students also have opportunities to get involved with the annual Nottingham Poetry Festival every May, as well as enter writing competitions such as Foyle Young Poets of the Year and the Tower Poetry Competition. We are incredibly proud that our students have won two of First Story’s national writing competitions: the national 100-Word Story competition (2023) and the Eco-Poetry competition (2024).

'First Story' Creative Writing Club

We have a group of students from across the school who take part in the First Story programme. They work with our writer in residence to develop their writing skills and produce texts that are then professionally edited and published as a printed anthology.

The First Story programme offers students a chance to practice different styles and explore a variety of creative themes, while also improving their communication skills and confidence.

    

Readathon

For one week each October, The Bulwell Academy hosts a school-wide Readathon, encouraging reading for pleasure while also raising money for a great cause. You might have seen us last year on East Midlands Today or heard us on local radio talking about the incredible efforts our staff and students were taking to read as much as they could throughout the week, logging their reading minutes and fundraising for the charity Read For Good, who bring books and storytellers into children’s hospitals across the country.

   

As part of our last Readathon, we held a ‘reading relay’ with the Big Bulwell Book being sent from classroom to classroom – when it arrived, students stopped their task and read silently for half an hour before passing the golden book on to the next lucky class. We also had incredible events, such as a talk by Rachel Delahaye (author of Electric Life) and visits to local primary schools where student ambassadors read stories to classes of young children.

We aim to make our next Readathon even bigger and better, encouraging more reading minutes and raising more money for charity!

If you’d like to find out more about Read For Good, or donate to their cause, please visit their website: readforgood.org/

Donations made during (or shortly after) our October Readathon can be made on behalf of The Bulwell Academy, which would be greatly appreciated.