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• 21Sep2010

  Tom Palmer’s Foul Play blog (Autumn 2010)

  Posted by Tom Palmer

  Not the World Cup

  The World Cup was a huge success.

  Was it really?

  Not for Fabio and the boys, maybe.

  But it was for the National Literacy Trust and me. I had lots of fun working with NLT on our World Cup reading resources. And, when downloads of the free story, writing exercises and activities hit 100,000 we figured schools and libraries were having fun too.

  We also got hundreds of letters from happy schools.

  But we didn’t want to leave it there. So we’ve cast off our World Cup hangover and created some new materials that can be used to encourage reading and writing about football at any time of the year.

  A set of free classroom read stories for all age groups.

  An updated toolkit of ideas, called Love Football: Love Reading 2.

  And lots more - they can all be found on my resources page, along with a brand new national writing competition.

  Where do I get my ideas?

  When I work in schools one of the regular questions I am asked is ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’

  Well, I get a lot of my ideas from Ghyllgrove Junior School, Basildon, as it happens.

  I am their adopted author – and have been so for three years.

  But what does ‘adopted author’ mean?

  Well, I work with their literacy coordinator, Diane Baker, to come up with ideas to encourage reading and writing across the school, but focussing a lot on a group of reluctant reader year-sixes.

  We devise activities.

  We go on trips.

  They read my books and tell me where I’m going wrong. (And, trust me, I listen.)

  And, over the months, we develop schemes to get them excited about books. Then I take those schemes into other schools.

  This school year we are going to work on a term-long activity that will be about being a detective, but  also very much about reading and writing.

  We’ll try things. Some will work. Some won’t. But, by the end we will have learned a lot and hopefully developed something that might be useful somewhere else.

  Books

  I write books about football. Children’s stories. The next one due out is on 7^th October. It’s called Killer Pass. It is about a boy who investigates the burglary of his favourite footballers, becoming a suspect himself. The book will not feature a man wrapped, like an Egyptian mummy, in bandages. Nor will it include the death of the hero.

  That’s thanks to Ghyllgrove Junior School.

  The children read every book I write and help me shape it. They pretty much planned a rugby novel I have coming out in 2011 with Barrington Stoke.

  That’s why I have dedicated Killer Pass to them.

  I hope you find the resources useful. Anyone who wants to get in touch with ideas and comments can contact me at info@tompalmer.co.uk. My website is www.tompalmer.co.uk.

Tags: Libraries, Schools & teaching, Sports, Tom Palmer resources

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