Back to School for Some, but not for others.

Sharing a win, writing plans, and thoughts on school.

The summer ended on a high for me, with the news that I won a prize: joint runner-up in

Dr Lily Dunn

’s Summer Flash Memoir competition. I’ll share my winning piece at the end of this post, but for now, let’s look forward. For September’s here, and for many, including my grandchildren and son, it's back to school. The little one starts in Reception, the elder goes up into Year Three, and my son begins a new teaching role at a new school. Wishing all those who are returning to education, whether in front of the desk or behind it, the very best of luck.

Photo by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash

This used to be me. For twenty-five years, off and on, with a few breaks along the way, I taught pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties. Sensory learning was my thing. We were told we had to teach the National Curriculum, with the equivalent units learnt that being taught in mainstream education. We were to teach about the Ancient Greeks, the Second World War, and I would use sensory drama to bring the world alive to pupils who could not access the world for themselves. I rewrote stories using the senses - my version of The Odyssey saw us climbing in boats to Rod Stewarts’ ‘We are Sailing’, hurling seaweed from the decks and spraying each other with salty water. Once on the islands, we visited Cyclops, a huge eye, painted in fluorescent paint was lit by UV lights, and we danced to banging German Techno and the theme from Midnight Express. The island of the Sirens saw us don grass skirts and coconuts as we danced to Tools and the Maytals’ Pressure Drop. It was all enormous fun, and, as my prose tutor on the Creative Writing MA I later took said, excellent experience for developing what he called a ‘unique narrative voice’ that was able to bring scenes alive using sensory detail. I’ll take that.

Do I miss my work? No, not really. I burned out good and proper and was very poorly. I wrote about all that here in this post after a consultant asked, ‘Oh, so you want to take the open-toed sandal approach,’ when I suggested that a lifestyle and career change was what was needed to help me feel well again.

I struggled so much in the school environment, getting along with people, hated the staffroom environment, and staff nights out always ended in disaster. I brought so much creativity to my work, but worked too hard, people-pleasing, masking, fawning, all the stuff that I now understand was my neurodivergence at play.

For many, the school system does not work. For

Caro Giles

whose book Unschooled is out today, this is most certainly the case. Caro writes bravely, from the heart, about her nightmares with the school education system as she navigates the stormy waters of mothering and supporting her girls with their education.

So what does September look like for me?

I’ve just finished rewriting a second edition of The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn, which my agent, Nicky Lovick, is taking to publishers, TV and Film - so exciting and I beg of you, please cross everything.

The second book, title still unknown, is in her hands too for an edit, and then that will be polished and sent out on submission too. That now frees me up to begin a new book.

I’m leaving YA behind and writing an adult novel. Nicky has told me cosy isn’t selling, she wants ‘spice’, so here I go. I will be writing about the challenges of that along the way. I shall be bringing a new character to the page, a woman who is in the midst of perimenopause and early menopause, and who is looking for love and excitement in all the wrong places. I have a ticket booked for Venice in early November, where I’m headed to write some of the scenes. I’ve just signed up with the

London Writers' Salon

and will be doing the Idea to Outline four-week course with

Anna C Wilson

and

Joanna Nadin

, to get this planned and plotted.

Those are my writing plans. I’d love to hear yours. What are you writing? What are your plans? Are you starting a new project?

What is September bringing for you? Do you have any travel plans? Do let us know in the comments.

Would you like to read my winning piece from Lily’s Flash Memoir Competition? It’s deeply personal, so is behind a paywall. Those of you who are new here, you’ll find that many of my posts are free, but those that go deep into my recovery from trauma and the deeply personal are for my paid subscribers only.