We had a fair amount of publicity from various sources; I've collected a few and the links are here:
http://www.in-cumbria.com/literature-quiz-joy-for-pupils-1.861585?referrerPath=home/welcome
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/cockermouth-school-pupils-jet-off-to-new-zealand-contest-1.857954?referrerPath=news
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-14135392
I will add more as I come across them.
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
More thoughts in retrospect
I'm sure there were many other people involved in the organisation of the 20th Anniversary celebrations of the Kids' Lit Quiz - people we didn't meet or whose support was in the background but this doesn't mean we aren't appreciative of their hard work behind the scenes.
One mention I haven't made is that of the Marriott family, ex-Cockermouthians who now live in New Zealand. Their daughter Melissa contacted me after her school was involved in their local heat and they heard Wayne announce that the winning school from the UK, which would be coming to New Zealand for the final in July, was Cockermouth School. Had her family not emigrated several years ago Melissa would now be attending our school and to show support for her native land she and her family travelled 4 hours to be at the Quiz final! We really appreciated their support and thank them very much for giving up their time to come to Southwell School - it was great to meet you all. Melissa will soon be too old to compete any more but has a younger sister and brother who will be eligible sooner or later - keep reading, guys!
One mention I haven't made is that of the Marriott family, ex-Cockermouthians who now live in New Zealand. Their daughter Melissa contacted me after her school was involved in their local heat and they heard Wayne announce that the winning school from the UK, which would be coming to New Zealand for the final in July, was Cockermouth School. Had her family not emigrated several years ago Melissa would now be attending our school and to show support for her native land she and her family travelled 4 hours to be at the Quiz final! We really appreciated their support and thank them very much for giving up their time to come to Southwell School - it was great to meet you all. Melissa will soon be too old to compete any more but has a younger sister and brother who will be eligible sooner or later - keep reading, guys!
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Lots of things I haven't already said...
We have been back for a week now and during that time people have been looking at the blog from various locations around the world - I find this really exciting! But also it has prompted me to add an extra post because during this last week I've realise that I didn't blog about many other activities we participated in during our time in New Zealand which were as much part of the week as the other events.
I've been looking at Bristol Grammar's blog and realised that because I, as an adult, am writing most of this, the points of view of our team have not been as important as if they'd written it themselves. Comments about the boarding house, the dormitories, the meals we enjoyed, the library where we all congregated, the great relationships our teams forged in the short time they were together - all details which 'made' our trip for our students but these have been missed out, not because they weren't important but because, to my regret, I didn't have time to record every detail!
So here are a few more highlights from our week:
On Sunday: travelling by bus to enjoy shopping at Westfield Mall in Hamilton prior to watching Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows part 2 (in 3D which was great!)
On Monday morning: visiting our buddy school, Peachgrove Intermediate, and putting faces to names! Some of their students had made contact with ours in the lead-up to our trip and it was great for our team to finally meet these people. We were treated to a presentation where we were introduced to some of their favourite NZ authors and ended up with lots of recommended reads to look out for. Thanks to Peachgrove, we now have some of these books to add to our school library - titles we can't get in the UK but which look really promising. I have them at home with me for the summer and hope to get through most of them before September so I can recommend them to our students.
I've been looking at Bristol Grammar's blog and realised that because I, as an adult, am writing most of this, the points of view of our team have not been as important as if they'd written it themselves. Comments about the boarding house, the dormitories, the meals we enjoyed, the library where we all congregated, the great relationships our teams forged in the short time they were together - all details which 'made' our trip for our students but these have been missed out, not because they weren't important but because, to my regret, I didn't have time to record every detail!
So here are a few more highlights from our week:
On Sunday: travelling by bus to enjoy shopping at Westfield Mall in Hamilton prior to watching Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows part 2 (in 3D which was great!)
On Monday morning: visiting our buddy school, Peachgrove Intermediate, and putting faces to names! Some of their students had made contact with ours in the lead-up to our trip and it was great for our team to finally meet these people. We were treated to a presentation where we were introduced to some of their favourite NZ authors and ended up with lots of recommended reads to look out for. Thanks to Peachgrove, we now have some of these books to add to our school library - titles we can't get in the UK but which look really promising. I have them at home with me for the summer and hope to get through most of them before September so I can recommend them to our students.
Teams from Cockermouth & Peachgrove in their library
In the afternoon we were joined by the other teams and their buddies from Southwell School, Morrinsville Intermediate and Fairfield Intermediate for a scavenger hunt around the school which was designed to introduce us all to some of the traditions of New Zealand storytelling. It was begun by the Assistant Principal from Peachgrove, Wayne 'Mr B' Brommell, reading a traditional Maori tale and then we split into teams to explore some of the stories which make NZ children's literature unique.
'Mr B' telling us a Maori tale
Some photos taken during the Scavenger Hunt:
The lads were singularly unimpressed by the dressing up they were asked to take part in -
but threw themselves into an impromptu 'haka' with enthusiasm!
Alistair's face says it all!
Hearing that they were going to have to perform their National Anthem...
... singing with more enthusiasm than we could muster for ours...
... and finding out the winners of the Scavenger Hunt.
During the evening on Monday the team representing New Zealand, Tahuna Intermediate School from Dunedin, arrived and gifts were exchanged with buddy schools and members of the Waikato Children's Literature Association who had worked so hard to organise the whole week for us. This was followed by a 'Welcome' dinner with Wayne who had arrived for the Quiz final the next day.
Tuesday's highlight, the Quiz final has been described elsewhere but when I blogged about it, we hadn't had the Gala Dinner that evening. This took place in Southwell School's flat floor theatre and was a resounding success, being MCd by Gerri Judkins and introducing us to several NZ authors and their writing. I was sitting next to David Hill (whom I had heard of so he must be pretty famous!). Others were Jenny Hessell, Tessa Duder and Brian Falkner.
We were greatly entertained by Brian Falkner, an internationally known NZ author now living in Australia but who came to Hamilton for the Dinner. He introduced us to some of his thoughts about how and why he gets his ideas for writing Sci Fi and read some of his work to us, as did the other authors whose writing represents the best of NZ literature for teens (and younger readers). It was revealing that many of the teenage waiters and waitresses were past members of Kids' Lit Quiz teams who had volunteered for the job in order to meet some of their favourite authors.
Another highlight from our week was the excellent meals we were served by the catering team at Southwell School. During the week I overheard many comments along the lines of, "School meals weren't like this in my day...!" so very many thanks to them all. The staff were invariably cheerful and chatty, always interested in hearing what we'd been doing and where we came from, and the food was great.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Spellbound Glowworm Caves and Otorohanga Kiwi House
An early start found us on the road by 8.30am heading for the famous caves at Waitomo which are lit by glowworms, and others where there are spectacular rock formations which are thousands of years old. The kids were particularly interested in the fact that the fossilised remains of a moa - a flightless bird similar to the emu but much, much bigger which became extinct over 100 years ago - had been discovered in the caves.
Our team with the South African team deep underground
The glowworm caves have appeared in David Attenborough's BBC Planet Earth series and I know why. They were amazing; we went in a dinghy with no lights so our eyes could become accustomed to the dark and it was like being under a very starry night sky. We got onto an inflatable dinghy and after the lights on our head torches were extinguished,a loud shot was fired. This was to cause a disturbance in the air to fool the glowworms into thinking food was around and consequently they glowed extra brightly for us. it was magical and my photography can't do justice to them so I didn't even try to take photos!
After the caves we were taken to Michal Were's dairy farm for lunch and then went to see their week-old calves. A reporter from the local newspaper, the Waitomo News, spoke to some of the students; her report can be found here:
http://www.waitomonews.co.nz/i
Daniel being sucked by a hungry calf
Local reporter interviewing Alistair
The afternoon was spent at the Otorohanga Kiwi House where they are working successfully to protect and breed the endangered national bird of New Zealand. Kiwis are nocturnal so we saw them in dim light, running around and foraging for food - but photography is forbidden. There were plenty of other birds and reptiles indigenous to New Zealand as well as the kiwis.
Tuataras well camouflaged (there are 3 here)
A Kea or Alpine Parrot
I don't know what this is but it was so noisy that I filmed it!
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Quick update
I have around 8 minutes to add this so it won't be lengthy.
Yesterday we visited a traditional Maori village, the name of which I'm not even going to attempt to reproduce here.
It was fascinating; geysers spout up all over the place and one house had recently been abandoned because one had erupted into the kitchen. There were hot pools of varying temperatures, all steaming quietly (and some not so quietly) and we were treated to a traditional dance and song presentation by some of the inhabitants, who kindly posed for photos afterwards.
From there we went to the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua and staff, parents and kids alike spent an hour luxuriating in the naturally warm water. It was wonderfully relaxing although the kids seemed to get their second wind from it and talked non-stop all the way back to Hamilton, telling gory stories in the back of the bus.
Today (in around 10 mins) we go to the glow worm caves at Waitomo where we will spend about 3 hours in inky black caves underground, followed by lunch on a sheep farm and then a visit to a bird reserve where kiwis and other indigenous birds are protected.
Back at home apparently we have a mention on the BBC News website at
http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-14135392
Yesterday we visited a traditional Maori village, the name of which I'm not even going to attempt to reproduce here.
I told you it was a long name...
The whole village was wreathed in steam from the geysers
Traditional carvings on the village meeting house
This is where you can leave your dinner to cook while you're at work (it acts like a slow cooker)
The protruding eyes and tongue are meant to be intimidating to enemies
This guy really seemed to enjoy pulling faces!
All the teams with some of the dancers
From there we went to the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua and staff, parents and kids alike spent an hour luxuriating in the naturally warm water. It was wonderfully relaxing although the kids seemed to get their second wind from it and talked non-stop all the way back to Hamilton, telling gory stories in the back of the bus.
Today (in around 10 mins) we go to the glow worm caves at Waitomo where we will spend about 3 hours in inky black caves underground, followed by lunch on a sheep farm and then a visit to a bird reserve where kiwis and other indigenous birds are protected.
Back at home apparently we have a mention on the BBC News website at
http://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-14135392
Monday, 18 July 2011
And the result is...
...we came a very excellent third! A brilliant, nail-bitingly tense quiz has just ended with Manor Gardens Primary School from Durban, South Africa, coming first with 51 points by a huge margin, followed by the youngest team in the competition, Summit Heights Public School from Toronto, Canada (35 points). Cockermouth School came third with 27 points (I think, I was too busy taking photos to remember!) which was brilliant, as we lost a few points through being too excited in the first half but regained them with some fast answers after that.
The winning team were very knowledgeable and were ahead from the start; they fully deserved to win but the team from Summit Heights were also awesome as they were the youngest, some only 10 years old, and had never taken part before. They are Canada's first winners as this is that country's first year of entering the Kids' Lit Quiz.
Congratulations to all the teams but especially to our own team of course for doing so well.
Alistair says: Brilliant competition, best people won. It says a lot that even after the competiton, lots of us are still buried in a book.
The winning team were very knowledgeable and were ahead from the start; they fully deserved to win but the team from Summit Heights were also awesome as they were the youngest, some only 10 years old, and had never taken part before. They are Canada's first winners as this is that country's first year of entering the Kids' Lit Quiz.
Congratulations to all the teams but especially to our own team of course for doing so well.
Alistair says: Brilliant competition, best people won. It says a lot that even after the competiton, lots of us are still buried in a book.
Last minute stuff
I realise it's the middle of the night at home but the SA team parents have set up a live audio link to the quiz which, if you're mad enough to be up at that time of night, will be available on www.ustream.tv/channel/litquizfinals
It will begin at 2pm here (which is 1am in the UK) until 4pm approx.
If you have any difficulty finding it, search for lit quiz finals under 'channel'. I don't know how long it will be available or whether perhaps a recording will be available later on YouTube or anything but I will post it here when I know.
It's almost midday here and we just had a last minute rehearsal, making sure everyone knows where to sit, how hard to press the buzzers, how many questions there will be (70) and other important details; all that remains now is for us to have lunch, change into school uniform and go for it! Not sure much lunch will be eaten by some participants...
There are some great prizes for the top 3 teams including cash prizes and an amazing award consisting of a beautiful green glass spiral which apparently has some significance here in NZ. I need to find out what it means!
It will begin at 2pm here (which is 1am in the UK) until 4pm approx.
If you have any difficulty finding it, search for lit quiz finals under 'channel'. I don't know how long it will be available or whether perhaps a recording will be available later on YouTube or anything but I will post it here when I know.
It's almost midday here and we just had a last minute rehearsal, making sure everyone knows where to sit, how hard to press the buzzers, how many questions there will be (70) and other important details; all that remains now is for us to have lunch, change into school uniform and go for it! Not sure much lunch will be eaten by some participants...
Our team ready to take the challenge
All the teams just before the quiz started
There are some great prizes for the top 3 teams including cash prizes and an amazing award consisting of a beautiful green glass spiral which apparently has some significance here in NZ. I need to find out what it means!
The spiral is a koru, a traditional Maori shape which is indicative of new life, vitality, growth, strength and peace.
The shape is derived from the unfurling frond of the silver fern but is found in nature all over the world.
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