by Lavinia Jones

Earlier this year, Mrs Welbeloved organised a mini quiz for anyone who wanted to try out for either of the two teams who got to compete in the literacy quiz. We were given a Journal full of different short stories. She chose the ones that she wanted us to read. We all went home and read the stories. Most of us read the stories more than once so that we knew it well.

Once it was the day of the mini quiz, everyone who was participating went into room 16 and grabbed a clipboard and a sheet of questions. Once everyone was there, Mrs Welbeloved gave us a few minutes to answer a sheet of questions on each story.

One week later, we all got together again and found out who got in and who didn’t. If you didn’t get in, you still got a small participation prize. My sister and I both got in and we were so happy! We found out that my sister got the highest score out of everyone! Then Mrs Welbeloved told us who was in who’s group. In my group, there was: Me, my sister (Cordelia), Hannah, Amelia, Clementine and Maia. There were twelve books to read, including The Railway Children, Dragon Defenders, Fing, Fish in a Tree and The Cat Cafe. Everyone took one book from the table and took it home to study, just like in the mini quiz. Once we finished one book, we returned it and took another.

From then, everyone came to meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays to catch up on things. We also got to choose a group name each and design pictures with the name of our groups on it and a drawing of something to do with the name.

The quiz was supposed to be held in the Somerfield School hall and all the other schools were going to come to take the quiz there on a Thursday night but we went into lockdown so the quiz was postponed and each school had to take the quiz at their own school and send in their answers.

After a few weeks, when it was time for the real quiz, we all went into the music room and sat in a circle in our two groups on opposite sides of the room. Mrs Welbeloved gave us a sheet and we only had two minutes to answer all ten questions. There were twelve books in total - so we had to answer 12 sheets of questions. After we had answered three sheets, everyone got to have two gummy worms. Then after nine sheets, we got a plate of crackers, biscuits and fruit to share with our groups.

Next week on Monday, we got the results. My team got 4th out of 19 teams, and the other Somerfield team got 8th.

There were some really interesting books we got to read. My favourites were Fish in a Tree and The Cat Cafe. It was really fun being part of the team and I’m definitely going to try out for it again next year.