Education
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Taking Magnificent Grace into schools
They say it is good to leave your comfort zone, and recently I have been doing that and found myself loving it. For Skelton Yawngrave was invited to several schools to talk about Magnificent Grace during the week of World Book Day. Instead of an immaculately-dressed skeleton man, however, the children got his alter ego: me. Creating an…
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On floweriness
My wife pointed me to a piece in The Guardian about the UK’s National Curriculum and the tendency for primary school teachers to steer children’s creative writing towards “too elaborate, flowery and over-complex” language to meet assessment criteria. An issue raised by a large group of children’s book writers including at least two Carnegie Medal winners. I…
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Among School Children
Last week I spent a day working with 32 more able 11-year old writers from schools in Brighton. This was organised by my friend Dawn Daniel with Clare Blencowe at Downs School. The day was themed around contrasts, and I worked with them on poetry in the morning session. The warm ups were about locating…
Peter Kenny: a writer's notebook 