Career to Date

July 2006 – 2008

• Writing – currently working on number of titles for various trade and educational publishers
• Inset work with Primary Teachers focusing on the creative strands of the new Primary Framework
• Creative writing workshops in primary and secondary schools (Author visits working with children)
• Storytelling performances and storytelling workshops (Story Museum, Oxford)

October 2005 – 2006 - Writing-in-residence Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, Great Missenden

• Working with the gifted and talented and with local football clubs to encourage reluctant readers

June-October 2005 – Writer-in-Residence for the Young Cultural Creators Project

• Running writing workshops with Banbury, Cogges and High Wycombe Museums

Sept 2001 – 2005 – Writer/Storyteller/Consultant

• Writing children’s fiction, consultancy and writing education materials for the Hamilton Trust

April 1999 – July 2001 - Teacher

• Foundation Teacher, Rose Hill Primary School, Oxford.
  

Jan 1997 – April 2000 - National Teachers’ Centre Adviser, Zanzibar (VSO)

• Working with my Zanzibari counterparts to identifying training needs and plan appropriate inset

Previous Work History

Primary school teaching – Foundation, KS1 and KS2 (Tower Hamlets & Greenwich)
Journalist – Broadsystems Ltd. and News International
Musician – Lead singer, writer and arranger in an 11-piece Latin Jazz group called Avanti
Voluntary Work – with street-children in Guatemala

EDUCATION

1992 Postgraduate Certificate of Education, Greenwich University
1985 BA (Hons.) Performing Arts, Middlesex Polytechnic

INTERESTS

Tennis, Kiswahili, music & reading

PUBLISHED WORKS

• Trouble in the Rockies (October 2008 – OUP awaiting ISBN)
• Bella’s Chocolate Surprise (Nov 2007 – Milet, ISBN 1840595051)
• Bella’s Brazilian Football (March 2007 – Milet, ISBN 1840594888)
• Turning The Wheel (West Oxfordshire Arts/Arts Council, ISBN 0782777382)
• Bella Balistica and the African Safari (June 2006 – Milet, ISBN 1840594829)
• Last Mission (Jan 2006 – Longman, ISBN 0582851408) – Interactive CDROM. Part of Digitext series – sci-fi
• Bella Balistica and the Indian Summer (Feb 2005 – Milet, ISBN 1840594071)
• Age range 9-12, Children’s adventure fantasy - 75, 000 words
• Our Neighbour’s a Vampire! (Ginn, ISBN 0-602-24209-6)
• Ghoul School (Ginn, ISBN 0-602-24214-2)
• Bella Balistica and the Temple of Tikal (Sept 2004 – Milet, ISBN 1840593946) Age range 9-12, children’s adventure fantasy – 75, 000 words
• Baba Yaga’s Black Geese (2003 – Hamilton Trust, ISBN 1903990041) Retelling of classic Russian folktale for KS2 – available also as an oral CD with music and effects by Adam Guillain
• The Great Bird (2003 – Hamilton Trust, ISBN 1903990041) Original story in folktale genre for upper KS2 – also available on CD, story read by Sinead Gaffney, with music and effects by Adam Guillain
• Zanzibar Treasures (March 2005 – OUP, ISBN 0602242096) Short story in Voyage collection 2 with teacher materials targeted at YR4 (age range 8-9) Literacy Hour

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

• Bella Balistica and the Forgotten Kingdom (Feb 2009)

Juma's Safari

Galileo

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.