S H O RT S TO R I E S F R O M T H E G LO B A L C LA S S R O O M |
2014
F O R E WO R D
BY P R O F E S S O R D E B O RA H E Y R E
This year the theme of our short story competition was ‘Changes’, a theme that aptly
reflects both our dynamic student population and Nord Anglia Education itself. Over
1500 students from 24 schools entered the competition (twice as many as last year); an
indication of how much our family of schools has grown over the past 12 months and of
how popular our unique Global Classroom programme is.
Many of our students are not native English speakers, so the achievement of creating
a short story in their second, third or fourth language is one to be celebrated. I believe
that our High Performance Learning approach enables our students to achieve more,
and that the Global Classroom encourages them to both excel academically and develop
key values, attitudes and attributes such as imagination, confidence and perseverance.
To provide additional challenge, secondary students wrote their stories in the Gothic genre. Online workshops
outlined key features of the Gothic story, allowing students the opportunity to develop their knowledge and
understanding and apply it to their work. I don’t recommend reading some of these stories at bed time; they show
true mastery of the genre and are genuinely frightening!
Authors Tony Bradman and Sally Nicholls have supported the competition by providing writing hints and tips and
answering students’ questions, as well as