Scribbling With Delight

When I speak to trainee primary school teachers about their views of poetry I am often struck by their divergent … More

Lifesaving Poems: Shel Silverstein’s ‘Not Me’

I wrote yesterday about pitching poems in the classroom which are aimed not at the crowd but perhaps one … More

Who? Who is that child I see wandering, wandering down by the side of the quivering stream? Why does … More

I once saw Michael Rosen teach a theatre full of tearfully happy children and adults these wonderful nonsense word games … More

The Bath Festivals‘ Write Team was a creative writing project designed to develop pupil confidence and engagement in their learning. The … More

As I say in my previous blog post, I owe my knowledge of ‘8.06 p.m. June 10th 1970’ to the … More

I first came across ‘Birth of the Foal’ at the recommendation of the great Cliff Yates. He told me he’d been … More

‘I’ve learnt to be more confident with my ideas, because sometimes you have an idea that you just sort of … More

Andrew Motion is my hero because he set up the Poetry Archive with Richard Carrington. He has nothing left to prove. As … More

‘Whenever I work with people – no matter what their age – I try to run a checklist through my mind: are … More

I love the silence that descends on a classroom full of people who are all engaged in the act of … More