Brian Moses is available for the following activities in schools:
Rhyme, Rhythm & Rap: The Poetry and Percussion Show:
These are presentations to the whole school, or to infants and juniors separately, in an attempt to show that poetry isn’t something that just sits on the page. Rather, it can be brought to life using a variety of voices, movements and percussion instruments. Sessions usually last for one hour.
Writing Workshops:
Workshops last an hour (half an hour at KS1) and involve single classes, a year group, or a class size group of able writers in writing their own poems. Follow-up sheets are available. The Work of a Writer: Talks to pupils about what a writer does, how a book is produced (with examples), plus questions and answers.
Family Writing Evenings:
These sessions last for about an hour and a half. Parents and children are invited to listen to poems, to learn a little bit about how poetry is taught today, and to have a go at writing themselves. Emphasis is placed on treating children as young writers and on refuting the notion that all poetry has to rhyme. Above all, these should be fun evenings with families sharing a memory and then expressing their thoughts and feelings in words.
Writers’ Trails:
Developing a trail around school grounds so that children may be taken out to points along the trail and write on location. Alternatively trails can be set up around castles and other ancient monuments. (Brian has set up a permanent trail around Castle Cornet on Guernsey and trails along Southend and Hastings seafronts.)
Inset Days:
Ideas for imaginative writing, making the strategy ‘fun’ for pupils and teachers, performance poetry, location writing.
Able Writers’ Days
(In conjunction with Authors Abroad) taking six of your ablest writers and joining together with able writers from five other schools to stretch these children’s imaginations with a day of challenging writing activities.
(Full details of this scheme available on request.)
(In 2007, Brian was invited by Prince Charles to talk about able writers at his summer school for teachers at Cambridge University.)
International Schools:
Brian makes regular visits to international schools in Europe and has visited schools in Rome, Milan, Luxembourg, Munich, Frankfurt, Geneva, Zurich, Reykjavik, Madrid, Cordoba, Paris, Brussels & Dublin.
Spooky Weekends:
Brian, along with the poet Wes Magee, runs spooky weekends for young writers. They recently ran events at Hellens House, near Ledbury, at the Carnegie Theatre, Dunfermline and in a 14th Century Manor House on the Isle of Wight.
