Cricket Swimming Madness

So...I DID IT!!!!!! This morning, at 910 am, I walked into Bannatyne's swimming pool area, fully clothed in my cricket kit, climbed into the pool, and swam a mile. A MILE!!!! It was tough, it was crazy, it was uncomfortable, but it was great! £750 raised for the club and counting! This was meant to be my week of relaxing - work finished, children at school and nursery, Christmas shopping done, Christmas on the horizon but not yet here...but thanks to Alice's poorliness and my madness and penchant for doing wacky things, I've instead spent the morning swimming 80 lengths of a pool. Thanks to EVERYONE who sponsored me, and if there are any others reading this who would like to, please email me at conrad.burdekin@sky.com and let me know who you are and how much you'd like to sponsor! Thanks.

Illness and hotels

Since the beginning of this term in September, I have been the ONLY member of our household not to be poorly. The litany of unwell Burdekins stands so far at...

Alice (twice) - fever followed by impegigo
Violet (once) - fever and vomiting
Mabel (once but for a WHOLE week) - fever, sore tummy, sore throat, vomiting and EXTREME grumpiness
Clare (twice) fever, tiredness, vomiting, tiredness, sore tummy, tiredness...

In the middle of it all I wrote a new poem called 'New Terms New Germs,' inspired by Violet's brilliant class 1 teacher, Mrs Preston, who uses that phrase to explain the repeated absence of children from her classroom at the start of a new term. Only problem is that our family's poorliness lasted across the first half term and into the second. Only now does everyone seem to be getting back to full health, and, consequently, only now do I find that I have the relative luxury of time to write a blog entry! So...where have I been...

Longford Primary in Stafford to do a poetry day - the children there were AWESOME doing some great performance poetry. Long drive for me, but worth it as the children were great.

Morley Lit Fest - the Morley library and staff were brilliant, the lady in the car park opposite not QUITE so brilliant as she ripped me to shreds regarding parking illegally. I smiled, nodded, almost exploded, declined her (rather spitefully given) offer of a cup of coffee, and drove away.

Altofts gifted and talented writing day - this was a BLAST! The children from the 6 schools who arrived at Altofts were great. The only sour note of the day was the vomiting child at the entrance just as they were ready to leave. And it was a very SOUR note, if you get my meaning (curdled milk etc.etc.!)

Ryecroft Academy - what a great school, led under the able stewardship of Mrs Clarke. This school is making HUGE strides to improve the children's levels and general school experience, and I'm lucky enough to be one of the people invited to help with this. My favourite moment so far? The Year 6 group writing a story about a banana who has a sore nose due to his habit of sneezing yellowed banana snot all over the place.

Thornhill Lees - somewhere I've been each of the last three or four years and somewhere I always like to travel back to. Very accommodating and very happy, smily children.

Pikemere Primary - Cheshire - this was my first ever 'overnight stay' in a lovely hotel / pub nearby. I didn't fancy the two hour drive up the M6 / M62 / M60 / M62 only to turn around and set off at 530 the following morning to go back to school. So Clare happily agreed that I should stay local. And I did. And what a great evening. Cinema to see Taken 2 (brilliant), then a meal at the hotel pub (even more brilliant), then a full night's sleep, childfree (even more brillianter than everything else that was brilliant before!)

Following on from all that I've played golf at a stag do, taught newly qualified teachers how to inspire children to write and how to get them storytelling, written stories with Year 2 children about cheeky monkeys, taken part in the Kids Lit Challenge 2012 (WHAT an eyeopener), attended the Ossett Christmas Fair at South Ossett Church (and Katy - Jo, if I can find your poem, I PROMISE I will post it here), and today had a stall at my girls' school Christmas fair at Stanley St Peters. Which is where I'm going to finish, by publishing Leon's winning poetry competition poem. Well done Leon, I really like this, especially the last line. Here goes...

The Tornado

There was a tornado at the park
Today, so all the dogs said "bark"
There was a tornado at the park
Today
Twisting, turning,
Forever
Whirling


Well done Leon, great poem! And enjoy the sweets...

I also really enjoyed Jay's poem. Jay, who is in the same class as Leon at school, came very close to winning...

It

It is worser than a UFO
A ten armed octopus
Or being chased down the road
By a runaway bus
It is unimaginable
It is...

My mum on a bad hair day!


This made me laugh A LOT when I read it!

Phew! That's about it.

Benjamin Zephaniah...Irie Irie!

I visited Ecclesall Juniors last week for National Poetry day. I received an email earlier this week with a great story - the Y6 children from the Junior school were taken to watch Benjamin Zephaniah in action at the Lyceum in Sheffield. I'd have loved to have gone myself, but unfortunately when you have three girls to look after, things like this midweek are rather unattainable. When Mabel's in school...then...then...I'll be able to do it all!

Anyway, Joe, one of the boys who read out a poem in the final school assembly on the day of my visit, also managed to get himself on stage with BZ himself at the Lyceum. Not only that, but he also read out his poem that he'd written during my workshop, got to high five BZ, and was the recipient of much whooping and hollering from his classmates. Irie! Well done Joe, that's awesome. To have the approval of the great Ben Zeph, now that IS something to shout about.

I also suspect, (though have no proof to corroborate this 'fact' as I was not there), that the Ecclesall bunch, with their Benjamin Zephaniah hats, were by far the coolest kids there. I'll leave it to you to agree or disagree. Like I say, I wasn't there...

Bird Brains at Altofts go bananas!

Q:What do you get if you gather 70 children from six different schools and ask them to write stories and play drama games?

A:A whole lot of fun!!!

Today, thanks to the wonderful Mrs Blackstone, G & T and English coordinator extraordinaire, 70 children, from 6 different local schools, gathered at Altofts Junior school for a day of writing and drama games. Somehow, they all arrived at the right place and on time (well, almost on time...).

I had the KS1 children in the morning, and so told them that we'd be making up a story about a monkey. That's about as much as I did. The rest was up to them, and how they shone! They named the monkey bananas, decided he was very cheeky, and began to come up with cheeky things that he did. All of which was a great deal of fun. However, when he did one cheeky thing too many, their ultimate revenge plot was fantastic! Shave him whilst he sleeps, catapult him into the Antarctic, and let him freeze or be devoured by Polar Bears!!! Who said children always want happy endings? Not these ones! The calibre of writing and the confidence of the children to formulate their ideas and then put them down on paper was quite something to behold.

All of which then led on to the afternoon session with the KS2 and lower KS3 children. I loved watching the Year 7s. Part cool, yet part loving being allowed to be juniors for one day more, having stepped up and away from the Junior school at the end of the summer term. I think that at that age it's great for children to be allowed to still be children, if only for a day here or there. We've just had our house decorated by a wonderful decorator called David, and he told us that when his eldest granddaughter comes to play with her younger cousins, she joins in with the dolls and the prams, things that in her normal life she's left behind. Hurray for acceptable regression, that's what I say! I'm hoping my three girls will live in that state until they're mid twenties. Boys? Who wants to play with boys? We just want to play pretend tea parties with the teddies. Sadly, that may not be the most realistic of hopes, but still...

The older children wrote a story about Boulder, a enormously fat bird (morbidly obiece, according to one girl - I just loved that spelling of obese!), who loved nothing more than bursting the bins round the back of McDonald's and scoffing his face with mouldy chicken nuggets, old burgers, and greasy fries. Despite warnings from the other animals as to the possible pitfalls, Boulder kept scoffing his greedy face until...

...and at that point I asked them what might follow. And boy! Did they have some ideas! Many of them centred around a grizzly end to Boulder, including him being turned into an 'Ultimate' Big Mac. The children didn't finish writing their stories as we did not have a massivly long session, but how I'm looking forward to reading the finished articles when they've been completed!

It was, quite simply, a brill day. I am loving my job these days. Who'd have guessed it when, 8 years ago, I was measuring smelly, sweaty, overweight miners for overalls. How things can change.

Goodnight Bananas. Goodnight Boulder. May your creativity keep the children captivated today, tomorrow, and as long as it takes them to finish and type up their stories!

More poems

Just had a look through some of the other entries to the poetry competition. Here are some of my favourites, that ALMOST won, but just not quite. The first is written by my wacky and zany nephew, Tom. It's about an angry suitcase and it's superb...

The Angry Suitcase

There was once an angry suitcase

Who snapped and snapped all night

People kept on throwing him

Until his face went white

But one day it all began

And then he had a plan!

An extremely evil plan!

He had himself fitted wheels

And snapped at people's heels

And then he gave birth

Long Drive to Longford!

My first ever school in Staffordshire! Longford Primary turns out to be quite a way away for me...well over 100 miles, and over 2 hours of driving, which at 545 on a cold, dark, wet autumnal morning is not my IDEAL way to start a day.

However, it was VERY worth it. The children and staff were brilliant - made me feel exceptionally welcome and we had a blast. We were celebrating national Poetry Day (a day late!), and I'd been asked to work primarily with KS2 children on performance poetry. No problem, I thought. I'll get them all to perform some of my poems in groups...done that before...worked well...

Then, as I was about to launch into the first session with Y3, I suddenly thought 'Oh, I've not done this with a Y3 group before...hmmmm...will they be ok with it...?' And my goodness they were! In fact, the winning group were really close to winning the whole thing, just getting pipped at the post by Year 6's performance of a new poem of mine called 'New Term, New Germs.'

I was also ably supported throughout the day by Mrs Hume - I think that without teaching assistants like her, schools would fall apart in very short order.

Thanks to all at Longford, and here's hoping we meet again. And next time maybe I'll understand a few more words that the children say...cos that accent foxed me on a number of occasions!

Guns 'n' Roses at Ecclesall Juniors!

Last year I went to Ecclesall Junior school for National Poetry day, and my abiding memory was listening to one of the year groups singing the Matchstalk Men song about Lowry. I could not get it out of my head, came home, and spent two hours researching Lowry, the song, and a host of things that were most definitely NOT the planning that I should have been doing. All to a backdrop of the song on my computer on repeat.

So...as I headed of to Ecclesall Juniors today, once again on National Poetry Day, I couldn't help but hum the Matchstalk Men song as I had last year. There was no chance that I'd be so taken with something today in the way I was last year. No chance at all. Not a hope...

Until, of course, I walked into an empty hall to be greeted with 'Sweet Child of Mine' by Guns 'n' Roses...on repeat...loud!

So now THAT's what I can't get out of my head. Brilliant! Reminds me of my brother when he was young, listening to that song all the time. I don't know of any other junior school that would have G'n'R blaring out first thing on a morning, and I say WELL DONE! DO MORE!

And what I day we had. I absolutely LOVE this school. Everyone is just lovely lovely lovely! And the children came up with some amazing poetry. Not least, Gina, from Year 3, who'd written a poem the night BEFORE my visit as she got ready to celebrate National Poetry Day. So...here it is, linking in very nicely with the theme for this year's poetry day, which is STARS...

Gina, over to you...

My first shooting star

Bored and frustrated, sitting on my bed
See the curtains - an idea in my head
Rip them open, gaze out far
To my joy a shooting star!


I read it out to the school and they were suitably impressed. As was I! Well done Gina, keep writing 'em.

I was also given a poem by Megan in Year 6...not a star poem, this one, but one that is very topical around this time of the year...So Megan, take it away...

Halloween

Halloween's the time of ghosts and ghouls,
Pumpkins in windows grin like fools
When warlocks and witches meet,
Children go out to trick or treat
Some people do apple bobbing
While the spirits are wailing and sobbing
At the middle of the night,
You can get a fright


Brilliant, Megan, well done.

There were so many excellent poems today. Joe's kenning was awesome, Fraser and Oscar's poem about Teachers vs Aliens was a delight, and so so many more. As I watched all the children filing in to the final assembly I was filled with a real joy, one that I could feel deep inside, and could feel emanating from the children too.

Thank you Ecclesall, you've been great.

Now, what date is National Poetry Day 2013...?!!!

A VERY secret Secret Diary...

My secret diary is so secret that even I haven't been able to find it for a while...which would explain why I've not posted for a little while...

But I am still alive and still working in schools...lots of them.

I just haven't written about them.

But I have been to them.

Which is probably the best way round to be, if I had to choose. Because writing about my visits but not actually DOING the visits would land me in some hot water with head teachers across Yorskhire. Plus, it'd be pretty hard to write about a visit that I didn't actually make. If you see what I mean. Which you might not. Which is ok. It happens, farily frequently.

Anyway, here is my 'off the top of my head list' of what I've been up to...

1. Bought the entire series of 'Quantum Leap' on DVD last week with birthday money. Has there ever been money spent more wisely?

2. Ran a 'Boys 'n' Blokes' day, followed by a 'Girls 'n' Gals' Day at All Saints Infant School, Normanton on consecutive Mondays recently. What a great time we had, and how much the children made me laugh. Their comments on the feedback forms were priceless. Top of the list of suggested improvements was 'More Marshmellows next time' after the marshmellows for the hot chocolate at break time ran out!

3. Ran a three day writing event for the Juniors at Hallam Primary in Sheffield, where I'd been earlier this year in March. What a wonderful bunch of people they are down there - and to Hilary, the Year 6 TA, a huuuuge thank you and 'how did you DO that?' for creating a display so quickly I saw pictures of me doing stuff that I'd literally been doing only five minutes earlier. And as for the dragon...he hasn't got me yet!

4. Tidied out the cellar. This sounds like a job that might take a morning. It took Clare and I three weeks and ended up involving things like ditching nine bin bags full of baby clothes at the charity shop; emptying our wardrobes; booking in David, the best decorator in the North; and throwing away A LOT of stuff into a rather large skip. Good for the soul it was.

5. Got poorly TWICE leading up to and including the summer holidays, and missed TWO days of work - first time I've missed work since becoming self employed over six years ago. That's how bad I was. It was not pretty.

There is more, but I'm tired and so that's where it's going to finish. I would talk about the INCREDIBLE summer we've had...not weather-wise, you understand, but sporting superstar - wise. Ryder Cup team - a brilliant way to end off a sporting summer the like of which I truly believe I will never again see in my lifetime.

Goodnight one and all.

P.S. Oh, I should also mention that Poetry book number 3 is being written, and short story collection number one is being put together. Exciting times...

GSAL Visit

What a brilliant week I had last week at the Grammar School at Leeds. This is the second time I've worked with the Junior School, but whereas last time I visited for five separate days right across a month, this time I was there for a full week Monday to Friday. And it really made a difference. By Friday I felt that I was part of the furniture! The children were amazing, and so engaged in what I asked them to do. And the staff were brill - cakes, coffee, crosswords in the staffroom, and really involved in the workshops that I ran. GSAL is an extremely welcoming school, and one that I'd love to return to. They also seemed to like my book, judging by the amount of people wandering up to my hastily arranged 'bookstall' in the playground on Friday afternoon. My favourite (and most bizarre!) moment of the week was when I asked some of the children to write a Riddle about a sporting object. I read out a couple of mine and asked the children to guess what object I'd written about. Guesses included such things as 'shuttlecock' , 'cricket ball, 'football.' Then one lad at the front put up his hand. 'Yes?' I asked. 'Squirrel,' said the young man, confidently. 'Pardon?' I replied, I thought you said squirrel.' 'I did,' said the boy. 'It's a squirrel.' That led to a rather interesting discussion about where and how you might find a sport that involved a squirrel as a sporting object!

Waterstones and Poetry Competition

Last Saturday I spent a couple of hours in Waterstones at Wakefield, selling copies of both of my poetry books. I also ran a poetry competition. The entries were great, and it's taken me a while to pick a winner...not only that, but the prize that was going to be sent out has been eaten by my wife! 'I didn't realise that it was for some kids!' she explained. So I think I'll be taking a trip to the shops to buy something else shortly...

So...the winning entry is a great limerick by Lauren, age 8. Well done Lauren! Your prize will be with you when I've bought it (and assuming that I can keep it away from my wife!).

Here's the poem...

Mr Burdekin, I think you came to my school
We thought your poems were pretty cool
So imagine my shock
When I walked in this shop
And saw you sitting there on a stool! (still cool)

By Lauren, aged 8


Well done Lauren. This poem made both me and my twin brother laugh, and when a poem can make you laugh out loud, it's definitely a good one!

I'm going to be at Waterstones in Leeds today, so let's see if anybody can match Lauren's poem there.

Sheffield Sheffield Sheffield

All of a sudden, I feel like I've moved semi-permanently into Sheffield! I've been to a number of Sheffield schools recently, and am currently in the middle of a 3 day visit to Hallam Primary. Lovely school and lots of fun with the children there, but my goodness, WHAT a journey home tonight. Took me almost three hours to do a 1 hour journey. Seemed like wherever I went there were closed roads, roadworks, etc.etc. I ended up at the top of a hill looking out over the city not having a clue where I was!

Busy Busy Busy

So busy at the moment! I think I've had to turn down 6 or 7 schools recently, cos just no room. March truly is the busiest month of the year for me. But lots of fun within that busy-ness. Yesterday was brill dressing up as a pirate and joining the staff and pupils up at Ackworth Howard School. Mr Smith as Where's Wally was very amusing. Every time the staff needed to know something, someone said 'Ask Wally'.

And today, Stradbroke Primary in Sheffield had World Book Day a day late, as they do every year, so that the hyped up, energetic children can go home and deflate slowly for the weekend. Good plan I reckon! It's a large school (very large, actually), and therefore the full assembly hall this afternoon was an array of colour as 100s of children had transformed into book characters. Highlights of the day for me was Mrs Shelley's Smelly Wellies (brilliant work Reception), Lucy Cutts' written story (ALL her own work - another bit of genius from the 5s and under), and the story of tweety, the bird who loved Fish and Chips.

The diary tells me that 19 events to go before our end of month holiday to Spain. Take a deep breath, Con, take a deep breath...

It's here!

Well, this morning I had a delivery of 2000 books! Brand new books, written by me! 'Teachers Pick their Noses' is officially out, and ready for sale. I was sooooo nervous as I opened the first box. Would the cover look good? Would there be any spelling mistakes? Would I like it as much as my frist book? And, having dared to reach in to the box and draw out one of the books, it was to my great delight that I discovered my new book looks brilliant. Really fab. It's thicker than the first one (more poems for your pennies!), and the paper looks a bit brigher too. All in all I'm completely chuffed about it. Now I just need to sell them...

Blast from the past at Towngate

I spent all day yesterday at Towngate school in Ossett. It was rather strange driving up the hill to the school - the same hill that I used to walk up in the late 80s and early 90s almost every day in the summer on my way to Spring Mill Golf Course. Some things look rather different when you're a grown up - the hill, for example, used to seem a lot longer and steeper than it did yesterday (although I guess yesterday I was in a car...).

What a brill day I had there. The children were lovely and the staff were extremely friendly. The poetry from some of the children was outstanding. Jacob, the eventual winner, wrote a fantastic riddle - I'm hoping to post the poem up here - so come on Jacob, send it through!

I really hope that I can go back there sometime. But I need to remember to watch my head when I go into the staffroom. I nearly knocked myself out on a low beam. Nobody's ever noticed it before, cos nobody is tall enough to be worried by it. Until me, that is!

And I'm sure that every child in school will forever remember that my name is Conrad (not Conran, Connor, Carl etc...). Conrad. Conrad! Conrad!!! With a 'd, d, d, d, d, d,'!