Green text against dark blue background. Text reads: 1 Day to Go Deadline: 31 July Midnight BST foyleyoungpoets.org Blue squiggly text reads: Foyle Young Poets of the Year Blue, Red, Green and White paper boats scattered throughout.

Only one day left to enter the #FoyleYoungPoets of the Year Award!

Judges Colette Bryce and Will Harris are searching for writers aged 11-17 anywhere in the world to send in entries on any theme.

Enter here: foyleyoungpoets.org

This is one of my favorites!

Remember: You are enough just as you are

Image: www.instagram.com/parrottpaints

Illustrated quote by Emily Coxhead with playful fonts and colours. It reads: “There is joy to be found every day in every tiny and huge kind of way. Sometimes we’re so busy our brains feel dizzy. But the magic is there… everywhere.” Featuring bright shades of pink, green, orange, blue, and yellow with doodle-style emphasis. Picture by Emily Coxhead.

“Joy is not in things; it is in us.” Richard Wagner

There’s magic in the everyday – in the tiniest blink-and-you-miss-it moment or the biggest, hugest grin.

Even when we feel dizzy with busy, joy is still there.

We just need to spot it. 🧡

#kindness #positivity #joy

Picture by Emily Coxhead

Libraries make the world a better place.

Fun linguistic fact of the day. We used to speak of 'messagers' and 'passagers' before they became 'messengers' and 'passengers', since they were borrowings from French. Speakers in the Middle Ages decided to throw in what linguists call an 'intrusive n' to make them easier to say.

This is pure gold. Stop trying to blend in, strut your stuff 😊

A photo of my book on offer from WH Smith.

I’m pleased to say my paperback is currently on sale with WH Smith for only £4.99, so do grab a copy if you fancy. And thank you if you do!

Link is here: geni.us/GuiltyWHS

*** BIG NEWS ***

My and @greeborunner.bsky.social BRAND NEW BOOK is out soon with @crownhousepub.bsky.social.

In it, we explore what it is that sets amazing schools apart and answers the question, 'How DO they do it?'.

Check it out here www.crownhouse.co.uk/how-do-they-...

Kids’ Poems and Stories With Michael Rosen This is the official Michael Rosen video channel. All videos and playlists on this channel have been approved by Michael Rosen and are safe to watch. Please be wary of any other videos that are off...

My five poetry workshops here, for teachers, children, school students or anyone, have just passed in toto 100k views. I hope people are finding them useful:
www.youtube.com/c/MichaelRos...

This a last-ditch cry for help. My lovely son is struggling to secure work ex for June, as are many of his friends. He's 17, confident, motivated, outgoing. His A levels are maths, physics, chem. I'm ready to stick him in a Travelodge to save him staying at school tidying displays. Can you help?

Teaching is team sport not a competition 😊

"Flight from Earth" - Marsh Family parody of Katy Perry's "Firework" on the Blue Origin space launch YouTube video by Marsh Family

They have surpassed themselves this time @marshfamilysongs.bsky.social you are amazing and gave me a much needed laugh. Spot on as always and I'll never hear that song again without your lyrics in my head! 👏🏻👏🏻
youtube.com/watch?v=YJF6...

They are wonderful and the children love them! 🥰

The Bear-Shaped Hole is publishing this May! 🐻✨

"The Bear-Shaped Hole is going to be one of the most important picturebooks of 2025." @jonnybid.bsky.social

"powerful, sad and joyous in equal measure." @smithsmm.bsky.social

By @writerpoetjohn.bsky.social & @thomasdocherty.bsky.social 🩵

We have these books! ☺️

Not all books are the same

Some add greater value to pupils' learning than others

I have 3 criteria for selecting books that will help pupils engage deeply with the curriculum

More here marymyatt.substack.com/p/not-all-bo...

Speechless by @mrwolfcomics.bsky.social (creator of Mr Wolf's Class) is a masterpiece. So many children, and adults, will be able to relate to Mira and her struggles to speak in public. It's a book bursting with empathy and a perfect graphic novel for the Y5/6 bookshelves. Do track down a copy.

Good Bones Maggie Smith Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I'll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.

This poem. Every single word.

a hand holding a book in front of book shelves, on the book cover is a young girl looking at a comfy seat with a hat on it and beside the seat is a vase with flowers in it on a table

Latest review on the Big Bearded Bookseller site, Where Did She Go? by Cariad Lloyd and Tom Percival

A sensitive yet humorous picture book dealing with bereavement and grief

💙📚 #BookSky #KidLitUK #PictureBook

www.bigbeardedbookseller.com/2025/03/22/w...

Clearly there is an orchestrated move against the work of @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social that seeks to derail what is, overall, a strong move towards a more equitable system.
I am a MAT CEO and I have no issues with the Bill and support her work, and mandate, to improve our system.

For me today that looked like a pile of mending for a clothing charity. Busy fingers make for a calm mind 😊

Artwork featuring the head and shoulders of a Black woman in a jacket and with glasses, smiling, facing slight left on a grey background surrounded by a curved line and small white star shapes

Mary Jackson worked at NASA as the first female aerospace engineer, overcoming tremendous prejudice, she joined the organisation in 1958. (Artwork by M.Metzlar) #WomensArt

Famous women for women’s day

These women brought about positive change. We need mote women to follow in their footsteps.

#ForAllWomenAndGirls
#WomenEd

“Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them.” The extraordinary will take care of itself. William Martin,The Parent's Tao Te Ching

William Martin,The Parent's Tao Te Ching

Every act of kindness creates a ripple with no end Yellow writing on an orange background with blue ripples on the outside

“Too often we underestimate the power of a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” Leo Buscaglia

Kindness matters, always. 🧡

#kindness #ripples #positivity

Happy International Women’s Day.

I’m grateful to all those whose shoulders I’m able to stand on and privileged that others may consider standing on mine in the future.

#StrongWomen
#SeeThemBeThemRaiseThem
#IWD2025