Book Prize Judges and Shadowers.

Seven Year 8 students recently completed 16 weeks of reading, reviewing and debating 6 shortlisted books for the Hampshire Book Award, as JOG’s Judging Panel. The group then travelled to Bishop Challoner School in Basingstoke, where they met up with a group from The Wren School and other judging panels from schools across the area.  The groups mingled, debated and quizzed, before casting their individual votes. They were unanimous in choosing their winner – Electric Life by Rachel Delahaye – which won overall.

We’ve also been shadowing the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing this year, with Alice in Y9 managing to read all the books in a short time and publishing brilliant reviews on the Carnegie Shadower’s website. She also chose the Shadower’s winner, the gritty Crossing the Line by Tia Fisher and predicted the overall winner, The Boy Lost in the Maze by Joseph Coelho. It’s been a sustained and phenomenal effort by all these literary students, who have attended every Book and Biscuit Club, had brilliant debates (and eaten a lot of biscuits.)

Joining in, JOG School Librarian Mrs Chester is sharing how she’s currently embarking on an intense summer of reading as a judge of the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize. https://climatefictionprize.co.uk/2025-prize/meet-the-judges/ Launched at Hay Festival, with Mrs Chester as part of the panel discussion, she got to chat with many other authors, poets and artists, including Simon Armitage and Owen Sheers as well as her fellow literary judges – and spoke about being inspired by her student readers and judges and their choices of reading. She also spoke about the Prize (and the students) on Radio 4’s Open Book programme!

It all adds up for JOG Champions! 

A record 30 students from Year 7 and 8 took part in the UK Maths Trust’s Junior Maths online challenge earlier in the term. Of the 30 that took part, 18 placed, with 8 Silver Medals and 2 Gold, for Oscar and Luna. Head of Maths Mrs Smith said ‘it’s a brilliant achievement to have so many students take part – and place! Their participation and success was no doubt influenced by their older peers.’ Last term, 6 students completed an hour-long online ‘problem-solving’ challenge under exam conditions, securing Bronze and Silver Medals and two Golds. Of the Gold Medal winners, Cameron went on to compete in the ‘Pink Kangaroo’ competition, and Harry, the National Cayley Olympiad. Harry was among the highest-scoring participants nationally, and received a special Certificate of Distinction.

Top Poet and Spoken Word Artist speaks to Poetry Students

Year 8s got to quiz ‘one of the best poets we have’ (according to author Matt Haig) after reading two of Hollie McNish’s poems for this term’s Diversity and Poetry topic, Mathematics and An English National Breakfast, and being inspired by the power of poetry to challenge unacceptable views.  Award-winning poet, best-selling author and spoken word star, Hollie generously agreed to answer some of the students’ questions in a video.

The Year 8s asked Hollie a variety of questions, including what other poets she’d recommend and what her inspiration was behind these two poems.

Hollie’s last piece of advice to the students was revelatory: ‘if you read a poem and you don’t like it, don’t let that put you off poetry altogether. Imagine if we did that with other things; if you saw one painting or listened to one song and then are like, “ohh, I don’t really like art, or music.” We don’t do it with other things, but we do it with poetry. So I hope you find some poems that you like and thanks so much for reading mine!’

Faculty Lead for English, Mrs Caplat, said; ‘Hollie McNish is exactly the type of poetry hero our students need.  She’s confident, funny, intelligent and unashamedly determined to change what young people should accept. She does this in a way that is accessible and feels possible for them to achieve too. That’s golden.’

When asked about studying Hollie’s poems as part of their culture and diversity unit, students added:

“I like the way she uses her voice. She makes you listen, she speaks passionately”

“She uses rhyme and although it sounds easy, when you read the poem, she’s actually dealing with really difficult things”

“She’s a good role model because she once went to school in Hungerford and now, she’s a famous poet. It makes me want to do something like that”

Hollie McNish recording her messages for Jog Students.

Lastly …

Climbing Wall Fundraiser Update.

This term, we have raised £2,500 towards our School-Community joint Climbing Wall project, which has been match-funded by The Good Exchange. Students took part in a sponsored Triathlon, putting the fun as ever – not to mention effort and energy – into Fundraising. Students cumulatively ran, cycled and walked the 5,890,020 metre distance from JOG to Olympic Paris. Thank you all for your generous donations, and let’s keep going! See how much we’ve raised here, and do share the link!  https://app.thegoodexchange.com/project/18888/john-ogaunt-school-parent-staff-association/climbing-wall—additional-sports-facilities-for-students

Exhausted students after putting the effort in!