Cranford Review 2015

We
Now
We All Have a Favourite Day ...
all have a favourite day, for some it is Friday which jubilates in the weekend’s commencing,
the hope of a Saturday morning lie in and a fragrant coffee that revivifies the fatigue of the
past week’s marking. For others it is Monday that holds them; the simple hope of a new beginning,
a once-again chance to renew past wrongs and get to it. But for me Wednesday holds that draw. It
smells of cherry blossom damp on out-stretched arms and sounds like the giggles of children hiding
in the bushes at Cricket matches. It looks like a warm open fire that crackles with the innate feel
of warmth and companionship and finally it feels like home.
On a Wednesday at 3:30pm (sharpish) S7 morphs into a literary paradise of friendship and
challenge. A place where the students aren’t held to any particular literary technique but rather are
asked to give into the joy that can be found from simple writing… because full stops can be thought
about in editing. It is a place where happiness and sometimes sadness are shared in the joys that
can only be expressed through prose. It is a place where invigoration is openly celebrated and
cultivated knowingly by lovely Ross who is always enthused with epic ideas. Finally, it is my
favourite day because it is the day where I realise once again that away from the normal humdrum
education system of results and exams that students’ minds really are a beacon of inspirational
hope for the future. Their minds are really so inquisitive given the chance… so able to think out
of the ordinary and into the extraordinary. My lovely students have simply astounded me with their
ability to think and create and for that I will be eternally grateful, because that is why I became a
teacher in the first place.
I am and always will be a very proud Ms Hibbins so thank you for your time and dedication.
2014 / 2015
in my third consecutive year participating in the First Story writing
group, I felt comfortable pouring my innermost feelings and sparks
of ingenuity on paper and using this with guidance from the group, Ms Hibbins
and our resident writer, Ross Raisin. I was the only year 13 student in a group
filled with students from years 10 and 11, which was refreshing and I got to
know them quite well. They interacted well as a cohort of literary creativity
and inspired our amazing anthology ‘It Always Seems So Simple’. Our refined
masterpieces were centred around this recurring theme and it made for some
very dark but also light-hearted material.
As a safe-haven of friendship and challenge, the group was able to freely
express themselves and delve deeper into the extraordinary world of
creative writing away from revision for exams. As a collective, we
have become a beacon for future originality in writing. Personally, having the
opportunity to support the First Story scheme at Cranford for the last 3 years has greatly
improved my self-esteem and inspired my love for creative writing and reading novels. It enabled
me to make great friends through this shared passion of writing and it just feels like home, a
place where we go to get away from the anxieties of modern life. I am all the more thankful that
I was able to be a part of it and extremely grateful for the time and dedication everyone has put
in over the last 3 years, in particular to Ms Hibbins and Ross for their phenomenal efforts and
contributions to First Story for the amelioration of the students.
Kishan Shah (year 13)
Katie Hibbins (First Story)
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