This coincided with the finale of the 6-weeks mentoring programme that Emerald had been running for year 10 students from our school.

Upon arrival students were greeted and taken on a tour of Emerald’s beautifully designed head offices. They got to see departments such as marketing, design, finance, human resources, copywriting, editing and facilities.

Author, Susannah Lloyd gave an inspiring talk about her life as a professional writer and opened up to student about her creative thought process and how she refines each step of her writing. Susannah emphasised how important it is to create space to allow the imagination to flourish. As part of the session she invited a student to the front of the room to co-read one of her books to the audience. The book they chose was ‘This Book Can Read Your Mind’.

Next, it was time for the students to show their flair and imagination as they participated in a ‘storytelling’ breakout session. Each table was given a sheet of paper with just a picture of a ‘person’ and no information attached. They had to create a main character and feature their plight in a compelling story. One group not only wrote their story out but excitedly produced a pictorial storyboard to illustrate it.

Each of the 4 groups were then tasked to present their stories back into the rest of the group! It’s fair to say we have some very confident presenters!

Our time together was rounded off with a presentation of certificates for completing the mentoring programme. This was led by Emerald’s Tony Roche (Publishing Director) and Simon Cox (Group People and Finance Director). Each student was given an Emerald gift bag containing goodies including a book voucher thanks to World Book Day.

Melissa Fojt (Head of Community Partnerships/Trustee of The Emerald Foundation) said, “We were delighted to host ‘World Book Day’ with the 18 students who took part in the Emerald Mentoring Programme. It was great to see such high engagement from the students and to hear their interesting (!) stories from the Storyboard workshop – writers in the making!”.

Stuart Rees, Principal of One In A Million Free School said, “We are delighted to have worked so closely with Emerald. They are absolutely at the forefront of their industry. It is an absolute privilege to have members of their team (pictured above) working with our students to offer them advice, guidance and direction”.

Mark Hughes, Academy Trust Member added, “One In A Million are thrilled to have the Emerald Group as one of our Corporate Partner’s. Every time we collaborate with them, either as a charity or as a school, it is an incredible opportunity to grow, learn and be inspired. Whether that be through their programmes or an event like World Book Day, we are always made to feel welcome and valued. This is something we do not take for granted. Thank you to all the wonderful staff members at Emerald”!