Shaking that Dust.

Well, it's the last session at Our Lady & St Bede's tomorrow, working with our young people who will be practising their performance pieces and fine-tuning their stage directions for the North East regional final taking place next weekend at the ARC in Stockton. (Are you coming along? Come along!)

It's very exciting to be reaching the end of this project and being able to see our Slammin' Saints onstage. It feels like Alfie and I have been resident poets at the school for aaages, and it's been really good fun working with the teachers and a fabulous bunch of young people who seem to have got a lot out of writing and performing their work. I can't say I'll miss the 5.30am starts all that much, but it will be weird not to be thinking about delivering workshops and playing Giants, Wizards and Elves.

I've really learnt a helluva lot when it comes to working in schools - not least that you can't underestimate how important it is to have teachers working with you who are as fired up about the work as you are - and I'll certainly be incorporating more of a performance aspect to my own work, both creatively and in an educational way. Getting people up and moving about is a great way to keep the imagination fired, and to get reluctant writers to realise that poetry is fun.

Because it is, you know. Really good fun.

Come and see for yourself!