Monday June 3rd 2024

Dear Diary,

With half term over in a flash, I was back out on the road today for school visit number fourteen. Whiteshill Primary pupils and staff were certainly relaxed and rested after a week off, as they were an amazing audience today, from assembly time right through to school closing! There were giggles galore, superb story ideas, and all manner of crazy character creations. But the one thing that stood out the most was just how artistic all of the children were – there are definitely some future book illustrators among them. Today was a super way to start off on this second stretch of my school visits. There was a real community spirit at Whiteshill, and reading is clearly high on everyone’s priority list… both at school and at home. Every school I visit is different to the last, but what links them all is how receptive the pupils are to having an author spend time with them, and just how much they put into all of my activities as well as how much they seem to get out of them. The staff really made me feel like a part of the team today. And the pupils all put an incredible amount of effort and enthusiasm into everything… and laughed at all the right times whilst I read from my book this morning.