Park Community School Visit

Last week I visited Park Community School in Havant to give a talk and run a drama workshop. The event was set up by the school’s wonderful librarian Ann-Marie who is incredibly passionate about encouraging new readers and wanted an event that mixed elements of English, Music, Drama and Careers to cover multiple bases in the curriculum.

I started out with a talk to 150 students in the school’s gorgeous theatre space - this is the biggest group I’ve ever given a talk to and I was pretty nervous, but the students were so lovely and engaged that I had nothing to worry about! It was brilliant to talk to them about The Songs You’ve Never Heard and even perform ‘And What?’ and ‘Domino Effect’ live - everyone clapped and danced along!

(I am waiting for permission to post “in action” photos, but here was the theatre space that was full up!)

After the talk was a Q&A session where I was asked so many questions that we actually missed the end of lesson bell! So many students got involved, asking such thoughtful and intelligent questions and I absolutely loved chatting to them all.

After that was a book signing and photographs, followed by a drama workshop with a smaller group. We had some brilliant improvised scenes including some super bubbly Alana’s and dramatic Caspar’s! I also got to hear a rendition of “You Will Be Found” from Dear Evan Hansen that the group had been working on which was fantastic.

Thank you so much for having me and for such an enjoyable visit - everyone’s enthusiasm for Songs was so lovely and I really hope you will all enjoy reading the full story!

Portchester School Visit

On the launch day for The Songs You’ve Never Heard I visited Portchester School to give a presentation to a lovely class of Year 9 students. They were all partway through reading the book and one girl had even finished the whole story!

We had a great class discussion about themes in the book such as defining success and body image in the media. I also read part of Chapter 26 where Meg and Alana write ‘Domino Effect’ then played them the real life song! There were a lot of musicians in the group and it was great to chat about what gets us into a creative headspace.

Thank you so much to my friend Tom for having me and for promoting the book all over the school - being able to sign student copies and answer questions for the school newsletter was my first real “omg I’m an author!” moment - hope to come back again in the new term!