I have written scores of books for children age 4-12, including a wide range of fiction and non-fiction. I have also written non fiction, magazine articles and poems for adults. I am happy to devise a programme to meet your individual requirements. You might choose, for example, to have three workshops in a day with different age-groups, say fiction with infants and P5-6 and non-fiction with P3-4. Or you might prefer to focus on one age-group; to opt for writing fiction on the same theme throughout the school, or go for a mixture of talks and workshops. A day will typically consist of two or three sessions; a half-day of one or two.

Talks

I usually do talks in the classroom for individual classes but I’m happy to speak to up to 100 children if they’re the same kind of age. For infants, I feel half an hour is long enough; for juniors, talks are about an hour.  I can focus on writing fiction or non fiction or both, or talk about my personal approach to writing. With older children I quite like to throw the whole thing open and start straight in with questions and answers after a brief introduction.

Workshops

Up to class-size groups are ideal for workshops. These can be anything between one hour and a whole day.  The energy that drives creativity is joy, curiosity and a sense of personal meaning.  My workshops are about helping children to feel they can write something interesting no matter what level of literacy they may have attained. 

For Juniors

My workshops begin with discussion, then writing warm-ups, then some fitness-and-skills training, before going on to more sustained writing. In non-fiction workshops I start by uncovering the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience every child in the class has available to write about. I ask the children to choose a topic from their lists and then look at what they already know, what they would like to know and where they could find that information. After a recent session, Y3-4 children created pamphlets from the work we did on topics as various as ice-skating, Spain and keeping gerbils. Fiction workshops begin with some imagination warm-ups, so we can all get the point and thrill of exploring the unique world inside our minds. I don’t have a fixed menu of workshops, they usually develop from an initial conversation with the literacy co-ordinator, but some recent workshops include:

• Creating stories from characters

This approach lets children explore one of the points of writing stories, which is to explore solutions for problem situations. I’ve also used it for a ‘writing on a theme’ day with a Y6 class, the theme being bullying.

• Writing from fact to fantasy

This is a three-visualization session where I take children from a familiar place, such as school or their walk home, and then introduce some surprise elements to trigger their imagination.

• Writing in a landscape

This was a whole day, starting with a trip to some woods, where we did various writing exercises with notebooks and had a picnic, finishing with an afternoon writing in the classroom.

For Infants

In fiction workshops I read one of my big book stories and then create a similar one with the class. A recent workshop from ‘A Rat for Mouse’ involved choosing a pet in a pet shop, so each child could make their own variation. We wrote and drew the story as a book. With non fiction, I start by reading some big books including ‘How to make a feely box’ and then the children create their own version. 

Feedback

Jenny Alexander worked in our school running a Writing Club with our Y5/6 children, last school year. The quality of each workshop was excellent. I attended the club myself and I was amazed at the wide range of children who chose to attend the club each week. I was impressed by Jenny’s approach to writing which really got the children motivated and enthused; personally I particularly enjoyed the warm-ups and short tasks and they gave me plenty of ideas for my own teaching. The club had a real buzz with everyone being engaged in writing and being totally focused – it was brilliant! 

Mary Dolan,Tregadillet Community Primary School, March 2008

The children’s enthusiasm and willingness to ask questions was testament to Jenny’s approachability as a character and effectiveness as a spokesperson.  Jenny remained after the presentation to further discuss her work with those pupils who still had questions.  The children thoroughly enjoyed Jenny’s visit and they all gained a valuable insight into the work of an author.

James Lye, Year 5/6 teacher, Oreston Community Primary School

Jenny was extremely professional and calm when working with children at our school. She was able to motivate them to write quickly and worked in an interactive style to encourage participation from all. The children were very eager to talk to Jenny where she demonstrated honesty and sincerity.  Jenny was encouraging to all abilities, empowering the children to write about what they already knew, being ‘experts’ in a particular topic. They were inspired to write and we were thrilled with the reaction of the children after her visit.

Mrs M J Saunders, Literacy co-ordinator and class teacher, Brixton St Mary’s Primary School 

Most recent publications

How to get what you want, by Peony Pinker (A and C Black, 2011)

How to get the family you want, by Peony Pinker (A and C Black, 2011)

How to get the Friends you want, by Peony Pinker (A and C Black, 2012)

How to get the Body you want, by Peony Pinker (A and C Black, 2012) 

Car-mad Jack and the Speedy Sports Car (pb Hodder, 2010)

Car-mad Jack and the Versatile Van (pb Hodder, 2010)

Car-mad Jack and the Marvelous Minibus (pb Hodder, 2010)

Car-mad Jack and the Taxi about Town (pb Hodder, 2010)

Car-mad Jack and the Motorbike in the Mountains (pb Hodder, 2010)

Car-mad Jack and the Rugged Off-roader (pb Hodder, 2010)

Finding Fizz (A and C Black)

Bullies, Bigmouths and So-Called Friends (Hodder)

Going Up! The no-worries guide to Secondary School (A and C Black)

How to be a brilliant writer (A and C Black)

How 2 B Happy (A and C Black) 

Rabbittalk – 50 ways to make friends with your rabbit (Hodder) 

The 7-day Bully-buster (Hodder)

The 7-day Self-esteem Super-booster (Hodder) 

The 7-day Stress-buster (Hodder) 

The 7-day Brain-booster (Hodder)