Monday March 24th 2025

Dear Diary,

It was a real pleasure to return to St Matthew’s Primary School in Cainscross today. The atmosphere inside the school was as warm and welcoming as I remembered from last year, and it was a treat to see so many familiar faces! After my new assembly – during which everyone quickly checked to ensure they weren’t sitting on the dragon I’d lost – it was straight onto my workshop for Year 3. We had some great fun and silliness in this group, but we also discovered many budding authors. Their teacher provided some fabulous feedback for those that won certificates for their written work, too:

Rosa – Super setting of the scene and great use of description.

Millie – Excellent character description.

Oli B – Super diary entry to introduce your characters.

Hugh – Well done for creating suspense.

Stan – Well done for adding detail about your dragon.

Maisy H – Engaging the reader and thoroughly enjoying the task.

The second session of the morning was for Year 4, where some more masterpieces were produced! Some fabulous comic-strips were created in this workshop, but I especially enjoyed Belle’s account about a dragon hiding under her bed:

After lunch, it was on to Year 5. Freddie’s account of how to get your dragon to do your homework was very comical:

And I was also very impressed by Katie, who wrote 5 pages under the title ‘Sorry, Sir, but a Dragon Ate My Homework’:

In the blink of an eye, it was time for my last session, for Year 6. I thoroughly enjoyed Oscar and Cobi’s collaboration about a child who kept misbehaving and blaming his behaviour on his pet dragon – who turned out to be an imaginary friend. I also thought Ethan’s character illustrations were really eye-catching:

Both the pupils and the staff were a joy to spend the day with. And Helena, the lovely school secretary, was an absolute superstar throughout the day again, and sent me home with a lovely hot coffee… just like last year. I’ll try to add more to this another day, as I’d love to document more of the stories, diary entries, poems etc. that were dreamt up, yet tiredness is catching up with me. After another busy day, there’s no rest for the wicked, as it’s publication day tomorrow, and I’ve more school visits and a launch event to get ready for. But after another super school visit, I’ll be sleeping with a smile on my face again tonight.