Author works with Year 9 pupils

Helen Walsh, a famous author who is currently the Young Person's Literature Champion for Rochdale

Helen Walsh, a famous author who is currently the Young Person's Literature Champion for Rochdale, has been working with Year 9 pupils this term at Wardle High School. She has been working with three small groups of students on a Friday over a period of ten weeks to help them produce their own short fiction story. Once completed, the stories will be performed as part of Rochdale Literature Festival 2013.

All Year 9 pupils were set a 'flash fiction' task where they had to produce a short story of between 150-200 words. The best entries were chosen and those pupils were lucky enough to spend ten weeks working with Helen, who offered them advice and guidance on their stories. Helen has worked with many different people in the past; including having worked in prisons and primary schools, but this is the first time she has worked with high school students on a task like this.

In addition to currently being the Young Person's Literature Champion for Rochdale, Helen has so far written three novels the first of which, called Brass, was the winner of the Betty Trask Prize. During the last session which took place on Friday 17 May, Helen frequently commented on how impressed she was with the student’s and how far their stories had come along in ten weeks.