On Thursday we were thrilled to have esteemed children’s author Jamie Rix at Michael Faraday. Jamie held three separate workshops throughout the day, each pitched at the different literacy levels within the various year groups.

Jamie entertained the children by reading out extracts from a number of his books, including Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, the Giddy Goat and the Last Chocolate Biscuit. You can listen to a short reading by Jamie in the podcast below.

Each session addressed the idea of how we can make our own stories more entertaining and exciting. Jamie told the children to use their own imagination to make stories stand out. We need to be as creative as possible, and hopefully add some humour into our work as well.

A Question and Answers session finished off each workshop. Some of the questions posed by our children were highly thoughtful. In particular the question asking: What would you say to President Obama if you met him, caused the esteemed author to become momentarily speechless!

You can watch a short video of the Q & A session with our Key Stage 2 children below.

Following the workshops, we caught up with a selection of children, to find out how the sessions have helped them with their own literacy work. You can listen to their thoughts in the podcast below.