I had a brilliant time at Beacon Festival back this June teaching poetry workshops to groups very different from my usual undergraduate students: kids!

I planned a really great session based around the senses as a starting point for a poem and we had some wonderful results which the students all read up on the Literary Tent stage.

One student in particular told me he hated writing so I suggested he draw his images instead and I was shocked to find that once he’s used art to generate his ideas, he then translated these into text quite easily. His mum was flabbergasted, too. It just goes to show how useful creative practice is for formulating ideas and helping children to access learning tasks. Shame the government aren’t catching on in their policy making!