Writing Workshop
Author: alan durant
The Regis School
I ran a creative writing workshop at The Regis School in Bognor recently. The school wanted to inspire some of their more reluctant readers/writers in Year 7. I discovered from my Teachers as Writers project with Arvon how important it is to get children away from their normal classroom space and into somewhere more relaxed and enjoyable. So I suggested we have the day in a tent!
Heatherlands Primary School
On the 20th July I ran an Able Writers day at Heatherlands Primary in Poole with Year 2 children (plus a few Year 1s and 3s).
The school has lots of lovely outdoor areas and we took up residence in a wooden “gazebo”, filling it with rugs, cushions and bean bags. The whole school was outside for most of the day so there was a high level of distraction but the children worked really well, producing stories and poems.
Sports’ Writing
I love sport and I love reading about it – I always have. The best job I’ve had yet was to be the compiler of Sports Stories (now called Score!) in the Kingfisher Story Library. I got to read lots of sports stories and chose the ones I liked best for the book. A piece of cake, you might think. But it wasn’t. I discovered how few stories there are out there about sport, apart from football. At its best, sport is enthralling, dramatic and exciting, it puts you through the emotional mill and leaves you gasping but satisfied – and the best sport stories do much the same. But in the best sport fiction, something is worked out, achieved, that goes beyond the mere winning of a trophy.