Friday April 4th 2025

Dear Diary,

This morning, I returned to Tredworth Junior School. But this time around, my young cover illustrator, Theo, was able to join me! Which was a real treat!!! With two back-to-back assemblies – during which Theo received hearty applause for his fabulous cover illustrations and got to answer some questions that the students fired at him – it was a very busy first hour of the day. But Theo really enjoyed himself, and he was such an inspiration to the pupils… who didn’t stop asking after him throughout the rest of the day.

All of my workshops during this visit were for Year 4, and my first session was for Aqua 1. Once I’d handed out instructions and worksheets for the first activity, total silence descended on the room, as the students focussed intently on their written work. But when it came to time for them to read their creations aloud, I think almost everyone joined in! They all came up with some fantastic work during this session, but I thought Sarah’s imagination was first class:

I also really enjoyed Aliyah’s story:

And during the second activity – which had the pupils creating their own comic strips – it was Jackson who impressed me, for managing to tell his story brilliantly through pictures and speech/thought bubbles alone:

The Year 4 students all very kindly switched classrooms throughout the day, in order to come to me in the Aqua 1 classroom, rather than me having to cart my author trolley up and down stairs all day. And after lunch, it was on to a session for Aqua 3. As well as all the stories that were dreamt up during this workshop, there was at least one song written. But I particularly enjoyed Ethan’s conversation with his teacher about his dragon having eaten his homework:

And I thought both of Tom’s stories were super:

In the final workshop of the day, the Year 4 pupils were just as productive. There were so many certificates handed out again – and to be honest, EVERYONE deserved one in each of the workshops, making the job of deciding who to award them to extremely difficult. But I really loved Keira’s super story:

… Layla’s wonderful story:

… Yuvika’s brilliant story:

… and Zohaib’s amazing stories:

It was lovely to hear from the teachers that those students who are normally reluctant writers had really impressed them today, too, with how much work they had produced!

My printer and I will be busy this weekend, getting ready for another five-day week of school visits next week. But if they’re anything like the visits I’ve just done this week, then I can’t wait!!!