IT is not every day that a real poet and an illustrator visit your school to talk to pupils.

So when poet John Siddique and illustrator John Hutton agreed to take part in our Book Week, we made sure that we were on hand to report the sessions for our commemorative news sheet.

We found pupils in year seven enthralled by John Siddique's memories of the poetry he had written as a child.

He then asked them to write a short poem about a feeling, such as anger, and read it out for others to guess the emotion.

"It was excellent," said some of those taking part, who all thought that the session had helped them to improve their skills in poetry. John Hutton the illustrator explained how he draws the pictures for books by first working out a character profile.

Pupils were given the description of an animal and challenged to draw it. All agreed that the lesson was brilliant and were very impressed by John's artistic skill.

Another exciting Book Week event involved some of our year ten students attending a script writing workshop at Accrington and Rossendale College.

"We learned that you need to attract the audience's attention in just a minute and a half," said one amazed student. "After discovering about different techniques we even had the chance to do our own script writing, it was great fun."

So whether you want to write news, poetry or the next episode of your favourite TV soap, it is all a matter of know-how.

By Sarah Lofthouse, Laura Westwell, Katie Wilkinson, Stephanie Willcock, Kyle Murray, Nicholas Quinn, James Hartlebury, David Pollard, students at St Augustine's RC High School, Billington.