My visit to Bangkok Patana school

In February, I was invited to revisit Patana in Bangkok - the British International School of Thailand (I visited 5 years ago as well).  I spent a fabulous few days with the children in Nursery, Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. I taught various workshops where I shared with the children how adding illustrations to stories makes them even more engaging and fun, in particular how illustrations can tell a story in themselves and can give clues to the story ahead.  I showed them how I create storyboards with all of my ideas and inspiration, which I then use to create my Goose books. Together, we created our very own Goose stories taking inspiration from topics they were learning in the curriculum at that time and seeing how we could base a story around that. 

One of the highlights for me was when the children got to draw Goose and other characters from my books themselves, I guided them how to draw which meant drawing became more accessible to all. With the tools to draw the characters, the children made front covers for stories they had come up with. I was so proud of them all! What creative minds they all had. I hope this gave food for thought and inspired the children to have the confidence to create their own characters, pictures and stories.  Some of the children told me they wanted to be authors and illustrators when they grew up, which was so heartwarming. 

I shared a video of my walk to work in Teignmouth, so the children could really get a sense of where I live and how the Devon coastline and sea has inspired my work. Many teachers now want to visit Teignmouth!

I also told lots of stories about Goose, and taught the children the 'Goose' song with Makaton signs, this is a special song which was developed by Movement Practitioner Charlie Ranken. It was such enormous fun!  I hope to be able to visit again in the near future!