Thursday July 4th 2024

Dear Diary,

I don’t really remember what my life was like before school visits. But I’m pretty sure it can’t have been anywhere near as much fun as it is now! Today, I spent the afternoon at Woodside Primary – a lovely little school tucked away in the heart of the Forest of Dean. And it was hard not to chuckle during the whole-school assembly when my narrator started getting heckled! (I ought to point out that he breaks the fourth wall by talking directly to the reader throughout the story. But this was definitely the first time he’d met his match.) When I got to the part where he says, “Shall I skip past this bit?”, some of the Reception pupils said yes!!! Fortunately, that was met with hearty objections from those in KS2. But it really tickled me to realise how invested all the pupils were in the narrator’s personal interaction with them. Sadly, the Reception and Year 1 & 2 pupils had to leave the hall straight after my assembly. However, the Year 3, 4, 5 & 6 pupils (only 56 of them in total) then blew me away during the workshop I hosted. After handing out my first lot of printouts, I must have turned away from them all for a minute or two… no longer than that. And when I then began to work my way around the room, I noticed that most of them had already produced a whole page of writing! Perhaps there was magic at play today. As the quality and quantity of work that was created in such a short time really was unbelievable! In fact, the work was of such a high standard that none of the children were allowed to take anything home. Their teachers are so eager to see how all of the stories conclude that the pupils will continue to work on them another day. This was a super end to my school visits for this week. My next one isn’t until the middle of next week, as I’ve lots of prep to do for my Regent Arcade event now. But the memories from today’s visit will certainly stay with me and keep me smiling until then.