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Join the Mystery Writing Challenge

 
 
Please note, although the challenge is aimed at Year 6 pupils, we welcome entries from other year groups should the teacher feel the book is accessible. 
 
The Bloomsbury Mystery Writing Challenge aims to engage and inspire Year 6 pupils and raise standards in Reading and Writing. It is based around The Mystery Of Wickworth Manor by Elen Caldecott.
 
In a series of four short videos, the author reads extracts from her book and sets a series of challenges along the way.
 
Supporting activities are designed to help pupils explore settings, objects and characters, and to structure their story.
 
Pupils will develop their own mystery story which will be entered into a competition.
 
A winner will be selected from every school entering the competition and they will be invited to attend a celebration event.
 
One overall winning entry will be turned into a beautifully illustrated eBook which will be published in School360.
 
The Mystery Of Wickworth Manor eBook and supporting resources can be found in the Resources section of School360. Teachers may choose the starting date and duration of the challenge but entries must reach us no later than May 1st 2016 at:
 
 
Jen Harris, Northumberland County Council, Ashington Town Hall, 65 Station Road, Ashington, NE63 8RX
 
Can schools please conduct the first part of the competition process 'in house' and submit their top 5 mystery stories for each class taking part. 
Paige Owens, bright, cheeky, confident, cannot wait to go to secondary school. Curtis Okafor, wary and much less confident, is not so sure. The only thing they share in common is the first letter of their surnames - which ensures they are forced into each other's company on a school trip to Wickworth Manor, the local stately home.

Then Curtis finds a portrait in his bedroom of a young black servant dressed in livery. But why is the portrait hidden in the bedroom, and not in pride of place alongside the other portraits in the manor? And then Paige finds an intriguing letter, written over 200 years ago by Miss Verity Burton, who used to live at the Manor, that mentions the portrait. There is a mystery begging to be unravelled! So Paige and Curtis, in their very different ways, start work to find out what happened all those years ago.