To celebrate World Book Day last week I read the poem below, by Thomas Lux, to my students. It…
Creativity, Confidence and Challenge: The Write Team Research Report
‘I’ve learnt to be more confident with my ideas, because sometimes you have an idea that you just sort of…
7 things I have learned about cancer
Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my diagnosis with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), an aggressive cancer of the lymphatic system.…
Miracle Fair -by Wislawa Szymborska
This week saw the death of poet and Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szmborska. She was 88. Her compatriot Czeslaw Milosz described…
On waiting to be diagnosed with cancer
Six years ago I began writing the journal which has become my forthcoming memoir of my experience of cancer. It…
Top five regrets of the dying -from The Guardian
There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their…
Lifesaving Poems: Marin Sorescu’s ‘With Only One Life’
With Only One Life Hold with both hands The tray of every day And pass in turn Along this…
Lifesaving Poems: Jackie Kay’s ‘Dusting the Phone’
One of the things I love about my job is that I get to co-construct projects with other people. One of…
A Few Odds and Sods
By this time in January, 2006 I was fairly certain that something was very wrong with my health. Like a…
A Twitter addict, I had to detox from modern technology by Jenni Russell
I went to see a play recently, set in the early 20th century, where a man sat in his office…
Can our family escape the tyranny of the screen? by Stephen Carrick-Davies in the Guardian
Can our family escape the tyranny of the screen? Stephen Carrick-Davies’s son suggested a non-screen day every week. The family…
Herod
Herod With Wikileaks in the headlines you could say the timing was perfect. Three Iraqi profs in…
Recent Research on Poetry in Education
Below is a summary of some recent research on progress in pupils’ poetry writing and teachers’ metaphors of poetry writing…
Lifesaving Poems: John Logan’s ‘The Picnic’
The Picnic It is the picnic with Ruth in the spring. Ruth was third on my list of seven girls…
In search of the ‘Tyger’: power relationships and poetry in the classroom
When I began teaching the Year 5 class of children whose work would form the basis of my doctoral…
Lifesaving Poems: Ann Gray’s ‘mercifully ordain that we may become aged together’
Ann Gray and I were chatting the other day. We were trying to decide how long we had known each…
Lifesaving Poems: WN Herbert’s ‘The Black Wet’
In 2002 I heard WN Herbert read ‘The Black Wet’ at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. This is not remarkable in itself, you might say, and…
The Write Team: Creative Writers in School -from Bath Festivals
via youtube.com I used to be the one sitting quiet in the corner and now I am not afraid to…
Lifesaving Poems 