JOHN O'NEILL
Deputy Head Teacher, St. John Fisher School, Peterborough
Richard has an incredible ability to enthuse and motivate a large group of students of all abilities. Excellent value for money.
MIKE ROUSE
Librarian, Soham Village College, Cambridgeshire
Vigorous and lively workshops that really got the children thinking and responding with some original, and at time bizarre lines of poetry. Great fun.
P. QUIGLEY
Head Teacher, Wessex Gardens Junior School, London NW11
Thank you for the marvellous poetry workshops you ran at our school recently. You managed to capture the children’s interest and really open up the joy of writing poetry for them. I was particularly pleased that your workshop drew on the wide range of nationalities represented at Wessex. Your ability to greet so many children in their first language was impressive and entirely in line with our ethos which celebrates bilingualism. Children of all abilities, and over thirty nationalities, all wrote poems. Many were of high quality.
PAULINE HAMMOND
Deputy Head, Bocking Church Street County Primary School, Essex
Your poetry workshop with our pupils was a wonderfully enriching experience for them and gave them the confidence to combine their feeling and their command of language to write some superb poetry - in short, to become poets. The impact of your workshop was felt for a long time, as pupils went on to inspire other pupils with their poetry. Needless to say, staff also used your teaching techniques with highly rewarding results.
JO WILLSMER
Literacy Co-ordinator, Nabbotts Infants School, Chelmsford
Thank you very much for the wonderful day you gave to our pupils. You inspired them to realise that "playing with words is fun". Yoo were able to release so many creative ideas from the children, and enable them to use so many descriptive phrases. The standard of work they produced was well above our expectations. Here is a short compilation of comments made by the staff. The children had so much fun that day. They were buzzing with ideas - they couldn't wait to tell us. The less able children were producing their own ideas - usually they are reluctant to do this without help.
MARIANNE OAKES
Head Teacher, Whitehills Lower School, Northampton
Thank you so much for a most enlightening day. Staff and children alike thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Once back in the classrooms the children continued with heir poems and have now produced some lovely finished work.
MARGARET SETCHELL
Literacy Co-ordinator, Fenstanton & Hilton Primary School. Cambridgeshire
All staff I caught up with thought it was a great success. You stretched them in the afternoon, but personally I'm grateful to you for doing this and, having read through tonight the lines produced by my class, I can tell you it was definitely worthwhile. It clearly freed them up and showed them powerful patterns for word order. Brief feedback from the kids included how much they had enjoyed it and, in particular, one capable, and imaginative girl who really felt it was the very best poem she'd ever written. Moreover, they were keen to take them home to show them off ... Thank you very much indeed.
TEACHERS at Baybrook County Primary School, Peterborough
Richard’s session was enjoyable. It inspired all the children (all abilities) to write. The poems were redrafted at school and some were impressive. The language used was really wonderful.
The children were entranced – excellent attention-grabbing antics enabled them to focus . ‘Hat Man’ continues to be discussed in the classroom.
Message to MILVIA BABBINI (translated from Italian)
co-ordinating teacher at the Liceo scientifico, Arezzo
Dear Milvia, A couple of words to tell you that today too everything went very well with Richard Burns, and colleagues and students alike are pleased and are asking if he can be brought back here again next year too. Heartfelt thanks to you for having brought us into the project and given us the chance to take part in such a fine experience. Teresa