Tag Archives: Centre of Excellence

Centre of Excellence

Module 2 assessment: CAUSE AND EFFECT

2 Comments 
Using eight-year-old twins Bobby and Alison, create a story - maximum of 1,000 words - that show cause and effect within the story.

I was a little apprehensive about this assignment, not completely sure what was meant by cause and effect. It can be defined as the consequences of an action, event or decision.

My answer:

Bobby and Alison are twins, they are more than just brother and sister, they are best friends as well. Even though they look alike, they both have very different personalities; Bobby is the one who will try new things out without really thinking about the consequences, whilst Alison likes to step back and think things through. 

Bobby and Alison love to play with their friends, they enjoy riding on their bikes, playing football or basketball or sometimes just playing computer games together.

One day, they all decided to go for a bike ride together and were happily cycling down the street when suddenly George appeared. Now, “Who’s George?” you may well ask, well he wasn’t a very nice boy, he teased the younger children and told tales on the older children.

“Where are you all off to?” he demanded, he had positioned his bike across the path so they couldn’t pass him. “We’re going for a cycle in the woods,” replied Jamie, one of Bobby and Alison’s friends. “I’m bored,” George announced, “So I’m going to come with you.” Everyone looked at each other and pulled faces, they didn’t want George to come with them, but it seemed like they had no choice.

They cycled around their local woods, George took great delight in stopping suddenly in front of them, causing them to brake hard to avoid hitting each other.

The path that they were following lead them to a river and tied to one of the trees was a rope swing. As soon as they arrived, George flung down his bike and raced over to the rope swing. “I bet I could do this easily,” he boasted, tugging at the rope to see if it held. The friends peered over the edge of the bank, it was quite high and steep and actually looked a little dangerous.

“Come on then, who’s going to go first?” George asked. They all looked at each other, none of them thought it looked particularly safe. “Do I have to pick someone then?” he asked impatiently, “How about you, Bobby?”

Bobby wasn’t sure that he wanted to go on this rope swing, if he fell, he would fall quite a long way and end up in the water. “Don’t do it, it doesn’t look safe,” Alison told her twin brother, “I’m worried that you may hurt yourself.” Bobby agreed with her and started to tell George that he wasn’t going to do it. “I… I… I don’t—” Bobby started to say, but George interrupted him, “Come on Bobby, what are you scared of? Are you chicken?”

Bobby looked around at his friends, they all looked scared, he had to do it, if he didn’t then George might pick one of them to do it. “Please don’t do it, Bobby,” his sister pleaded, “Let’s just get on our bikes and cycle away.”

“Bobby! I’m waiting,” George shouted, “All your friends will think you’re brave doing this, if you don’t, they won’t want to be your friends anymore!”

He stepped forward and even though his heart was thumping so loud he was sure George could hear it, he said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” Alison gasped, she could see the danger, she stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder, “No, I won’t let you do it, don’t let George bully you into doing this.” But Bobby just pushed her hand away and took the rope swing from George’s hand.

As he held onto the rope, he looked down, it was quite high, but he stepped back, ran forward and launched himself off the side of the bank.

The feeling of flying through the air was thrilling, he went forward and then backwards, closer to his friends, he could see their faces were a mixture of excitement and terror.  George was smiling, he couldn’t actually believe that Bobby decided to do it, he certainly wouldn’t have.

After a few swings, the rope swing started to slow down, until it came to a complete stop. Bobby was stranded, he was dangling over the water and not able to get the momentum to swing back to his friends and George. “I’m stuck,” he shouted, “Can anyone find a branch of something to try to hook onto the rope and pull me back?” They all looked around for something, but there was nothing to be found.

“Bobby, we can’t reach you, we’re going to have to get the fire brigade to come and get you,” Alison shouted, “Hold on.”

George produced a mobile phone, “My parents told me to use it in an emergency and this is an emergency,” so he phoned 999.

After approximately half an hour, a small fire truck arrived with four firefighters. “Well, what’s been going on here then?” the senior officer asked. Alison explained that they were trying out the rope swing and Bobby got stuck, whilst the other firefighters had found a long hook and were pulling Bobby back to safety.

“This rope swing looks pretty dangerous, I think we need to take it down,” the senior officer said to his colleagues, and with that, they cut the rope and the rope swing fell into the water below. “That was a very silly thing to do, you could have been hurt.”

Bobby looked at the ground, he knew he’d been stupid, he should have never given in to the peer pressure from George and then they wouldn’t have had to call out the fire service. He vowed that he would never give in to somebody ever again.

Assessor comment:

Another great idea.

Grade needed to pass: 60%

Your grade: 100%

Explain how you planned your story and any difficulties with the writing aspect.

Fairly self explanatory.

My answer:

I decided to wait to write the stories until inspiration came, rather than sit down and try and think of something to write. So I took my time and found that once I had figured out exactly what I was going to write, then the actual writing of it came easier than I thought. The planning really took the form of beginning, middle and end as these were short stories.

The main difficulty was actually coming up with an idea, especially for the cause and effect story, i had never heard of that before! Another difficulty I found was the word count, the worst story for this wa sthe magic story as I had wanted to go on to do another jigsaw adventure, but in order to not go too much over the 1000 word limit, I had to stop at one story.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing these stories.

Assessor Comment:

Fantastic, well done.

So that is Module 2 finished – I was very happy with my marks, 100% and a distinction. Fingers crossed that I can continue this standard in my future assignments, but I have a feeling it’s gonna get a bit tougher!

Centre of Excellence

MODULE 2 ASSESSMENT: FANTASY STORY

2 Comments 
Create a fantasy story for the 8-12 years age range. Even though the theme is magic, it must still be believable. The story should be approximately 1,000 words.

I was excited to do this assignment – a chance to let my imagination go wild for a while – I have already published this story on my blog, The Magic Jigsaw but I will show it again.

My answer:

Harry is ten years old, he lives with his mother and father and he is an only child. Harry loves jigsaw puzzles, he loves sorting the pieces out into corners, straight edges and the different shaped ones. He loves jigsaws with cartoons, scenery, people, animals, in fact, Harry loves jigsaws of any sort, so you can imagine how pleased he was when he saw that a new jigsaw shop had opened on his high street.

The Jolly Jigsaw Shop was squeezed in between the Chinese Takeaway and the Fish and Chip shop, it was hard to spot their front door, but Harry noticed it and excitedly opened the door and stepped into a world of jigsaw puzzles.

The shop had every kind of jigsaw imaginable; 500 pieces, 1000 pieces, large pieces, wooden and 3D. The shelves were stacked from floor to ceiling, he had never seen so many puzzles in one place. Harry had a hard time choosing which one he was going to buy, each time he chose one, he found another one he liked better.  Whilst he was trying to make a decision, the owner of the shop came up to him, “Hello, young boy,” he boomed, “What are you looking for today?” Harry looked up to see a large man, with bright ginger hair and a ginger moustache and beard.

“I’m not really sure.” Harry replied and added, “Do you have any favourites?”  “Well, I do like historical jigsaws, ones that show events in history, like this one for instance,” and the shop owner held up a puzzle which showed a picture of the Battle of Waterloo.

Harry thought that it did look interesting and so he decided to buy it. “No, no, young man, I won’t take any money for it, you are my first customer and I’d like to show my appreciation.” Harry did not want to accept this man’s kind offer and offered to pay, but the shop owner insisted, he just asked if Harry could return the puzzle once he had completed it, so Harry walked out of the shop with the puzzle under his arm.

Once home, Harry started to complete the jigsaw puzzle, it was 1000 pieces and the picture was very detailed; there were horses and soldiers fighting and a lot of gun smoke, so it took him a little while to complete.

A couple of days later, Harry had one final piece to put in the jigsaw puzzle. He placed it in its position and leaned back to admire the picture.

Then, a strange thing happened, the puzzle began to sway quickly from side to side, the picture became blurred and Harry felt as though he was being swallowed up into the puzzle and then everything went black…

Suddenly, Harry saw a bright light and he could hear voices, he looked around and he was no longer in his bedroom, it seemed as though he was in the middle of a muddy field. There were soldiers everywhere, shouting and rushing around, orders were being shouted by men on horses and then Harry saw a man sat in a tent, the tent had the English flag above it and he was surrounded by important looking men, Harry looked closer and couldn’t believe his eyes, it was the Duke of Wellington, whom Harry had just seen in his jigsaw puzzle. The Duke was deep in conversation with these men and they were earnestly pointing at a large map in the middle of the table. Harry moved closer and strained to hear what they were saying.

“But we are drastically outnumbered,” one soldier said, “We need to wait until the Prussians get here before we go into battle,” The Duke of Wellington replied, “The Prussians will be bringing about 45,000 soldiers, which will help us in battle because at the moment we are outnumbered by Napoleon’s army.” 

At that moment, Harry heard soldiers shouting, “The French are attacking, everyone to the battlefield,” and he could hear gunfire and cannon shots. Harry ran down to the battlefield and found a safe place to hide, he watched as the battle raged on and eventually the Duke of Wellington’s army managed to force the French to retreat.

Harry once again saw the Duke of Wellington, “We have lost lots of soldiers during this fighting,” he informed his generals, “But we need to stop defending our position and attack the French,” and his generals nodded in agreement.

This was the last time that Harry saw the Duke of Wellington as everything began to sway and Harry felt as though he was falling again. This time when he looked around, Harry was back in his bedroom, he looked at the jigsaw puzzle and the picture had changed, it showed the Duke of Wellington riding his horse in celebration of his victory.

Harry rushed to his computer, he looked up The Battle of Waterloo and sure enough, what he had seen and heard had actually happened, he was amazed. He immediately broke up the puzzle and went back to the jigsaw puzzle shop.

When Harry arrived at the shop, the owner was there, he was completing a puzzle himself and he looked up when he heard the shop bell tinkle and smiled when he saw it was Harry. “Did you enjoy that puzzle?” he asked, “Did it teach you anything?”

Harry reached into his bag and placed the puzzle on the counter, surprised that it was now again showing the Battle of Waterloo on the cover. “That puzzle was amazing, I learnt a lot about The Battle of Waterloo, do you have any others I could do?”

The shop owner reached up to a shelf above him and pulled out another puzzle, this time it was a scene depicting The Boston Tea Party. “How would you like to do this one?” he said, “There’s a lot you could learn from this one.”

Harry nodded, he couldn’t wait to get home and see what would happen when he completed this puzzle.

Assessor Comment:

Really enjoyed this short story, excellent idea.

Grade needed to pass: 60%

Your grade: 100%

Your mark: Distinction

Centre of Excellence

module 1 assessment

2 Comments 
Explain why you would like to write children's books and whether the results of your market research, as suggested, in this module, enable you to feel more confident in writing for a certain age group or whether you have changed your initial plan and would prefer to write for a different age range.

I was surprised at how easy it was to answer this question – so I guess this is what I want to do!

My answer:

I would like to write children’s books because this has always been a gentre that has interested me. I can remember as a child, running down to the mobile library every Tuesday, to see if there were any new books by Enid Blyton on the shelves. When I saw that there was, I wuold quickly book it out, run home and devour it straight away. It would be wonderful if my books were as eagerly anticipated as this, even by just one child.

I think that the books you read as a child, you never forget and you pass them on to your children and they then pass them onto their children. Children books have stood the test of tiem, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Black Beauty and I’m sure the Harry Poter books will be around for years to come.

When visiting the library, I’m often drawn to the children’s books, firstly to take a look at which genres are popular, look at the new books by David Walliams and the old books by Roald Dahl and to admire the colourful and imaginative covers of the books.

As a grandmother, I love sitting down and reading with my grandchildren, I love the look on their faces as they listen and take in what is being said and ask questions. It would be lovely to think that the same is happening in other families and that my stories are generating the same sort of conversations.

In children’s books, you can include almost anything: talking animals, invisible people, wicked witches, fairies, which means that your imagination can go as wild as you like and you can create whole worlds for the children to be a part of. Even though this still needs to be thought out carefully, you can also have a lot of fun creating your different characters.

The early readers age group has always been the age bracket that I regarded as my target audience, from five years old to about seven. I feel that at this ae they enjoy the simpler stories with straightforward story lines and an underlying message that good is better than evil. At this age, children have progressed from books that have more pictures than words, to more words than pictures, but the sentences still need to be short, with no long, hard to read words and after completing the task of writing a short paragraph for each genre, I found my writing style complimented these types of books.

I would love to write a series of books, featuring the same characters, who face every day dilemmas and are able to overcome these dilemmas wih help from friends and family.

After completing some market research, I am still eager to write for this age group as I think it is a wonderful age when children really do discover the joy of books by reading them themsevles to with their parents, siblings or carers and I would love for my books to be a part of that.

Assessor Comment:

Excellent answer, honest and well written to get your point across.

List your overall goals for taking this course and include any smaller stepping stones to help you achieve those goals.

I think that my overall goals were quite easy and the smaller stepping stones were common sense.

My answer:

My goal for taking this course is to eventually become a published children’s writer. I would love to have a book published that is ready by children, that they can relate to.

Anothe goal is that I would like to write more often, at the moment I can’t seem to get into this mindset and I would like to learn ways in which I can sit down and be creative and write.

Smaller stepping stones would be to produce good quality short stories for children and I would like to be able to learn how to create interesting characters.

Assessor Comments:

Realistic small stepping stone, everyone needs to start somewhere.

Grade needed to pass: 60%

Your grade: 100%

Your mark: Distinction

Centre of Excellence

WRITING books for children diploma

2 Comments

During the first lockdown of 2020, I happened to come across an advert via Facebook which was advertising courses at a discounted price. A particular subject caught my eye – Writing Books for Children Diploma and the price had been reduced from £199 to just £25, which I thought was too good of an opportunity to miss, as I was then in the process of writing a childrens book, so I immediately signed up. The company was the Centre of Excellence and they have courses for a wide range of subjects and they still have many courses at a discounted price!

The process was very straight forward and before long I was able to start with this course. So I thought it might be a good idea to share my experience with you, which means that I will be sharing my work and the feedback that I receive with the hope that it will inspire any would-be writers out there to have a go themselves.

I have to admit that whilst I started during the first lockdown, I didn’t get very far as, ironically, I was working on my first children’s book (which is due to be published this year), but now we are in lockdown three, I am hoping to finish this course.

So come along on this journey with me, we can all learn together and you never know, you could be the next Enid Blyton or J. K. Rowling!

Short Stories

The Magic Jigsaw Puzzle

2 Comments

Harry is ten years old, he lives with his mother and father and he is an only child. Harry loves jigsaw puzzles, he loves sorting the pieces out into corners, straight edges and the different shaped ones. He loves jigsaws with cartoons, scenery, people, animals, in fact, Harry loves jigsaws of any sort, so you can imagine how pleased he was when he saw that a new jigsaw shop had opened on his high street.

The Jolly Jigsaw Shop was squeezed in between the Chinese Takeaway and the Fish and Chip shop, it was hard to spot their front door, but Harry noticed it and excitedly opened the door and stepped into a world of jigsaw puzzles.

The shop had every kind of jigsaw imaginable; 500 pieces, 1000 pieces, large pieces, wooden and 3D. The shelves were stacked from floor to ceiling, he had never seen so many puzzles in one place. Harry had a hard time choosing which one he was going to buy, each time he chose one, he found another one he liked better.  Whilst he was trying to make a decision, the owner of the shop came up to him, “Hello, young boy,” he boomed, “What are you looking for today?” Harry looked up to see a large man, with bright ginger hair and a ginger moustache and beard.

“I’m not really sure.” Harry replied and added, “Do you have any favourites?”  “Well, I do like historical jigsaws, ones that show events in history, like this one for instance,” and the shop owner held up a puzzle which showed a picture of the Battle of Waterloo.

Harry thought that it did look interesting and so he decided to buy it. “No, no, young man, I won’t take any money for it, you are my first customer and I’d like to show my appreciation.” Harry did not want to accept this man’s kind offer and offered to pay, but the shop owner insisted, he just asked if Harry could return the puzzle once he had completed it, so Harry walked out of the shop with the puzzle under his arm.

Once home, Harry started to complete the jigsaw puzzle, it was 1000 pieces and the picture was very detailed; there were horses and soldiers fighting and a lot of gun smoke, so it took him a little while to complete.

A couple of days later, Harry had one final piece to put in the jigsaw puzzle. He placed it in its position and leaned back to admire the picture.

Then, a strange thing happened, the puzzle began to sway quickly from side to side, the picture became blurred and Harry felt as though he was being swallowed up into the puzzle and then everything went black…

Suddenly, Harry saw a bright light and he could hear voices, he looked around and he was no longer in his bedroom, it seemed as though he was in the middle of a muddy field. There were soldiers everywhere, shouting and rushing around, orders were being shouted by men on horses and then Harry saw a man sat in a tent, the tent had the English flag above it and he was surrounded by important looking men, Harry looked closer and couldn’t believe his eyes, it was the Duke of Wellington, whom Harry had just seen in his jigsaw puzzle. The Duke was deep in conversation with these men and they were earnestly pointing at a large map in the middle of the table. Harry moved closer and strained to hear what they were saying.

“But we are drastically outnumbered,” one soldier said, “We need to wait until the Prussians get here before we go into battle,” The Duke of Wellington replied, “The Prussians will be bringing about 45,000 soldiers, which will help us in battle because at the moment we are outnumbered by Napoleon’s army.”

At that moment, Harry heard soldiers shouting, “The French are attacking, everyone to the battlefield,” and he could hear gunfire and cannon shots. Harry ran down to the battlefield and found a safe place to hide, he watched as the battle raged on and eventually the Duke of Wellington’s army managed to force the French to retreat.

Harry once again saw the Duke of Wellington, “We have lost lots of soldiers during this fighting,” he informed his generals, “But we need to stop defending our position and attack the French,” and his generals nodded in agreement.

This was the last time that Harry saw the Duke of Wellington as everything began to sway and Harry felt as though he was falling again. This time when he looked around, Harry was back in his bedroom, he looked at the jigsaw puzzle and the picture had changed, it showed the Duke of Wellington riding his horse in celebration of his victory.

Harry rushed to his computer, he looked up The Battle of Waterloo and sure enough, what he had seen and heard had actually happened, he was amazed. He immediately broke up the puzzle and went back to the jigsaw puzzle shop.

When Harry arrived at the shop, the owner was there, he was completing a puzzle himself and he looked up when he heard the shop bell tinkle and smiled when he saw it was Harry. “Did you enjoy that puzzle?” he asked, “Did it teach you anything?”

Harry reached into his bag and placed the puzzle on the counter, surprised that it was now again showing the Battle of Waterloo on the cover. “That puzzle was amazing, I learnt a lot about The Battle of Waterloo, do you have any others I could do?”

The shop owner reached up to a shelf above him and pulled out another puzzle, this time it was a scene depicting The Boston Tea Party. “How would you like to do this one?” he said, “There’s a lot you could learn from this one.”

Harry nodded, he couldn’t wait to get home and see what would happen when he completed this puzzle.