Freya’s Story: The William Project This term Penrice English launched an auspicious Creative Writing Competition on the theme of ‘equality’. Miss Sigrist explains: “I felt equality was an apt issue to explore, as the power of language can and has been used to change the world.” “As a department we were really excited to see what our students created and the range of entries was truly impressive. It was clear that a lot of effort, time and creativity had gone into every one of them; each year group had an overall winner but out of all of the entries, one truly stood out.” The winning entry came from Year 9’s Freya. Titled ‘The William Project’, it focuses on the inner thoughts of the victim of an atrocious attack; thoughts that she pens for ‘William’. Freya said: “I knew the theme was equality and instantly thought of racism and homophobia as being prevalent issues – but I wanted to highlight something different. I wanted to create a character who was treated differently because of how she looked but not because of a disability; but because of a disfigurement beyond her control. I wanted to explore how she might deal with that pain.” Freya’s character, Avery, is shunned at school because of something that happened to her. A sad story, but one that was not difficult to tell: “It wasn’t hard to write – I knew exactly what I wanted to say and planned a little, but it just sort of told itself. I wrote whenever I could, a little at a time, and it took around a week to finish.” Miss Sigrist said Freya’s piece was ‘convincing and extremely enjoyable’: “The crafting of language and structure and the originality of the idea compelled me to read the piece in one sitting and, upon countless re-reads, I still get swept up in her storytelling.” Freya loves to write and has been inspired by all kinds of literature – her favourite author being Phillip Pullman. She was awarded an Amazon Kindle for her work: “I can’t wait to start downloading some books!” Miss Sigrist added: “Freya was a very worthwhile winner and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future!” Read Freya’s story: The William Project