A Question of Sport

I went to a great event tonight at Heathfield Primary School in Nottingham. I thought I'd share it.

The idea was to recreate the Question of Sport TV show in the classroom. For families.

There were nine men there. Dads, step-dads and grandads. each headed up a team of their kids in a pub quiz style event.

That was what impressed me so much. Getting dads to come to after-school events is not always easy.

The head teacher and another senior teacher led a series of rounds around general knowledge, what happened next and a session where I asked questions about my books. The families accumulated points for getting questions right.

It worked really well. We talked about sport and reading for an hour-and-a-half. Kids working with adults.

Family events like this work so well because they take the idea of talking about reading home with them. And everbody knows that strong readers are mostly inspired by their home experience.

If you want to do a Question of Sport event, here are some ideas:

* invite parents, especially dads, to a sports pub quiz style event

* do it like a pub quiz - and serve beer (to the adults!)

* the picture board round: show pictures of sports people from the cover of their biographies (concealing their names on the cover) - ask them who it is

* what happened next: show sports incidents selected from YouTube, stopping them before a key moment; then ask the audience to guess what happens next

* show sports newspaper headlines with words blacked out - and ask the families to guess the missing words

* read a section from some sports autobiographies and ask the audience to guess who it is by

* add a general knowedge round

* invite an author to come and add to the quiz activity

These are just a few ideas. It worked really well at Heathfield.

Getting past page 100

The article on the BBC website about boys struggling to get past page 100 in a book brought back a lot of memories for me.

In a survey of 500 teachers, 70% said boys struggled to reach page 100.

I got into reading aged 18. I was unemployed. Mid 1980s. I would sit in the front room at home trying to read.

I had this trick to help me. Every 10 pages I would cheer under my breath. If I made it to page 100 I would feel elated. This was even the case with books I loved. The cheering helped me motivate myself. It gave me stamina.

The article mentions 'stamina'. That is spot on for me. Having the stamina to get to page 100. When I do school events, I say that to the children. I didn't have the stamina. I compare it to footballers, who need to build up their stamina at the beginning of the season. They have to try to get match fit, but that the rewards are great. Just like with reading.

If I didn't make it to page 100 - and I didn't often early on - I would feel like I had failed. Failed to finish a book. I never tried to read a book over 150 pages. Not until I was 20. It was too much. Too much of a chance of failing.

Take a look at some of the booklists on http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/ : lots of short books that might not make boys feel like failures.

Engage with some of their projects: projects that give boys new ways to maintain their stamina.

Lobby important people about the work the National Literacy Trust do.

I ought to admit that I still cheer myself when I'm reading. Even though I'm 43. When I hit page 100 in a book. That's why the story hit home for me.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13393321

Postcards

National Literacy Trust

I am doing a new blog for the National Literacy Trust.

The plan is for me to blog once a week as I write my Squad series for Puffin.

Each week I will write about a different aspect of writing that I've been challenged by that week.

In addition there will be an exercise for school classes to do, if they want.

NLT blog

Please let me know what you think of it - and where I could take it.

Football Writers

I have been working with a group of children called the Football Writers since September. They go to Ghyllgrove Junior School in Basildon.

All year - supported by their amazing teacher, Mrs Baker (left) - they have been working on a trailer for my new book, Own Goal.



This is it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJmgBfbdwlY


I am absolutely thrilled with it. I hope you like it too.

They started by reading the book. Then they storyboarded it. Then they looked at other trailers for books.

Once they had shared the jobs of actors, directors, designers, etc., they set to work.

I am really proud of what they achieved. We took them to a cinema in Basildon and screened it there, so they could see it on a big screen.

Choosing Chocolate

When I was researching Off Side, I went to visit a fair trade community in Ghana. Part of the story was about a boy whose family were being cheated and not paid a fair rate for their cocoa beans.

One day I found myself in a school deep inside Ghana. The kids there asked me to sing some English football songs. I gave them a bit of Marching On Together and some other numbers. They wanted to know about England, about my books, about football and about my daughter,

The school had been paid for by a dividend that Divine chocolate pay the farmers to help them build schools and medical facilities. They had decent houses too. Thanks to being paid fairtrade prices.

The dividend Divine pays them means that Divine and other fairtrade chocolate costs us a few pence more. It doesn't make that much diference to most of us. But it does to them.

Please - if you're buying Easter eggs, etc. this week - consider buying Fair Trade. You'll be changing lives. I've seen it in action.

Easter

This Easter I will be at home for 14 out of 15 days. I go away a lot, so it's going to be great.

I have some plans of things to do with my daughter. She wants to play pitch and putt, football and go cycling. We'll do that.

A few nights ago she asked me what I used to play at with my friends when I was a kid. I said football. But then I remembered.

My friend and I used to build forts out of blocks of wood, set at either end of the room. We used to fill them with plastic soldiers. Then we'd throw balls at each others forts - to destroy them. The skill was to build a solid fort.

My daughter liked the sound of it. So I have bought some soldiers: £3.29 for 30. I can't wait.

Big and Clever by Dan Tunstall

Big and Clever is the story of a boy who is drawn into a new world of excitement and trouble by a friend at school. The boy - Tom - is at a new school and knows no-one. He feels like he doesn't fit in. Then he gets the chance to have a new identity. As a football hooligan. It is a chance he takes. This is a story about identity, fighting and drinking, but most of all, about choosing between the safe and steady comforts of life AND the excitement and danger of figthing at the football. What I love about this book is it is accurate. I used to know a lot of lads like the ones in this book and Dan Tunstall gets it spot on. That is so necessary in a book like this - and for the readers it is aimed at. The story starts with Tom as a nice son, a loving boyfriend and doing well at school. It ends in extreme - and not at all attractive - violence, at which point Tom has to choose one or other path. I have not been gripped by a books since reading iBoy by Kevin Brooks last year. In fact, the books have a lot in common. It is an outstanding book. On a par with Keeper by Mal Peet as one of the great football novels for kids. Big and Clever is published by inde press, Five Leaves of Nottingham.

Dads

I had a great chat with a couple of year eight girls today about dads. They told me how their dads embarrass them. Singing in front of their friends. Showing extreme affection in public. Treating them like they were seven. My daughter is seven. Soon she will be embarrassed by me, maybe. I am trying to learn things so that that won't happen... as much as it could. They did a story plan about an embarrassing dad. I tried to get them to see their story from their dad's point of view. It was all very embarrassing.

Nottingham

I have been in Nottingham most of this week, working with Den Corrall of Quadrant C! We've been working with year sevens - on reading and writing. And it's been great. There's a real love of football here. But also a passion for stories - reading them and writing them. I want to say thanks to Nottingham. I'm glad to be coming back next week and in May. I'd also like to apologise that Leeds beat Forest 4-1 on Saturday... but no-one would believe me, so I won't. Thanks also to Den. We have discussed a lot of things to do with football and fatherhood this week. Two of my favourite subjects.