Our students who have made up the judging panel for the 6 shortlisted books gathered in the library for the all-important awards ceremony. We were joined by Miss Christinea from Bradford Libraries who has been our head judge and chair for the panel.

Over the past few months the panel have read and reviewed the books, as a school we voted ‘If the World Were 100 People’ as our overall favourite book, but we were about to find out which book had been voted number 1 across the country.

All the writers and illustrators were interviewed and we had the opportunity to ask questions, we joined in a quiz to see how much information we’d remembered from the books (we all did really well and had high scores).

Pictured here are jubilant scenes when the winning book was announced, it appears that lots of schools agreed with us and voted ‘If the World Were 100 people’ as their top book. All the shortlisted books and a display can be seen in the library.

Two of our year 7 students, Ali and Mahmoud took part in the first ever Co-op Spelling Bee competition at Angel Square in Manchester on the 10^th February 2023.

The competition was a lot of fun, especially the ‘Wacky Words’ round where the contestants could choose between spelling a dinosaur name or a place name – there were some very tricky spellings in there!

We also have to thank Mrs Crowther for her input in the anagram round – she was a star.

There was a great atmosphere to the event, all the schools were supporting one another, clapping and cheering and sharing snacks.

Competition was fierce and the standards were high and although we weren’t placed our boys did fantastically well, and both boys received a certificate and a badge. We are really proud of their achievements.

On a cold, snowy day in January 11 students accompanied by Mrs Blashill and Mrs Gera visited City Library in Bradford.

We met up with Mrs McKenzie, the librarian from Co-op Academy Priesthorpe and 12 of her book club students.

After playing a fast, fun and furious ‘Getting to Know You’ game outside in the square we then took over an area of City library and had our official launch of the Opus Book Awards. The students from both schools worked well together, swapping ideas, discussing the books and making friends.

As well as reading as many of the 12 selected books as possible before June, our students award marks for the storyline, the characters, and the style of writing and then make comments on the books. The group will also complete a number of challenges linked to the books and the authors.

Challenge 1: Design a trophy: the students have been asked to design the trophy that will be awarded to the author of the winning book after our vote in June. We are hoping to get the trophy made in the schools using the facilities in the Technical Design departments.

Challenge 2: Make a promotional presentation: everyone is going to make a 3 slide presentation to promote one of the books and encourage other students to read the books on our shortlist. We have a wide range of titles, covering many different genres.

We have many plans for the future including author visits and a trip to Co-op Academy Priesthorpe.

All our students were a credit to the school, modelling good behaviour whilst in public spaces, respectful to other library users and everyone made an effort to make friends with a Priesthorpe student.

A number of Co-op Academy Grange students took part in the Summer Reading Challenge in conjunction with Bradford Libraries.

The challenge was to read at least 6 library books over the Summer holiday.

Here’s some of our students who met the challenge, and who each received a certificate, a medal and a book just in time for the Christmas holiday.

Well done to all the students who entered the challenge.

Every year on September 12th, we celebrate Roald Dahl’s birthday with our new year 7s.

Not only is it a fun day with lots of activities in the library, but it’s also a great way to welcome our year 7 students to Grange. 

The day started in tutor time when our year 7 Grangers looked beneath their chair to see who was the lucky recipient of the Golden Ticket.

This year’s winner was Samuel! They won a large bar of chocolate and a selection of Roald Dahl novels.

On the 13th of September, our Year 7 students celebrated Roald Dahl Day.

One lucky winner found a Golden Ticket hidden in their Tutor room and was the lucky recipient of a Roald Dahl book of their choice and a rather large bar of chocolate.

During break and lunch times students had the chance to enter many other competitions such as word search, design a chocolate bar wrapper and name a Willy Wonka product.

It was difficult to choose the winners as everyone worked hard and submitted some amazing work.