Years 7 and 8 students attended storytelling workshops by author and storyteller Cat Weatherill on Monday, 24th April.

Ms Weatherill began her workshops by encouraging students to tell each other stories from their own experiences, for example “My first visit to a hospital” and “A time when I really got in trouble”.

Telling each year group a different ghost story, Ms Weatherill asked the students to look for the ways in which she drew her audience in and built up tension and suspense.

Year 7 listened to the story of Richard and Elizabeth with the Golden Arm and identified the way Ms Weatherill acted out the story and varied the sound of her voice.

Year 8 heard The Haunted Cascade and saw how Ms Weatherill described the waterfall and the ghosts that had no hands. She used the analogy of an egg and drawing the audience into the yolk, or centre, of the story. She also showed them how easy it is to interrupt the story and “break the egg”.

Sitting around an imaginary campfire with the author, students took turns to add phrases to build up the atmosphere of a spooky setting like a dark forest or a moonlit graveyard.