Before I became a full-time picture book author, I used to be a primary school teacher. Before that, I was a teacher for secondary aged children permanently excluded from mainstream education. These days, I’ll take any excuse to get back into a classroom and talk about stories, writing, rhyming and how ideas work. If you’re a teacher, a head, a governor, a parent or even a pupil (Hi! Well done for finding my website!) and you’d like me to visit your school, please get in touch with me by using the Contact page to send me a message.
When I come to your school, I can bring my books (along with a story sack for each one), story-telling and idea-making games for us to play and lots of fun literacy activities. I’m a qualified Reading Recovery specialist and happy to visit classes from Reception to Year 6 as well as speaking in assemblies and answering any questions about writing and what it’s like to be a writer.
Like a lot of authors, doing schools visits is an important part of how I make a living, so unfortunately I can’t offer to come for free. I’m happy to talk about prices and work something out that suits both of us, but to give you an idea of what I charge, a full day is usually £300 plus travel expenses, with a half day charged at £200 plus travel expenses.
Virtual Visits
I am currently offering 30- 40 minute sessions with schools where I read and discuss 2 - 5 of my picture books. I can chat with the children based on their questions (spontaneous, or sent to me in advance), and share characters from my story sacks as well as puppets and props from my curiosity collections that spark my imagination when I need a story. I’ll also share the first rhyming stories I wrote when I was 7 and wanted to be a writer one day!
Schools can request whichever books they would like. I’m happy to recommend based on topic work or school focus. I can offer the following texts:
All picture books are suited for F1 - KS2.
Sessions are not to be recorded for later distribution, but I am happy for children at home and a number of classes to share the same session, where a member of staff is able to host and facilitate the interactive elements.
Price: £80
Book via Contact page
“Frances organised some wonderful activities and resources for the children, all had the chance to be involved in the activity. All children and staff came away with ideas for creative writing. Children were eager to read more of Frances books and were interested in becoming authors themselves! Meeting Frances allowed the children to realise that authors are real people … An excellent way to create a buzz about books for children. It helps to motivate the children to gather ideas and be inspired to read and write.”
Feedback from William Gladstone Primary Academy, Newark
“I liked the author visiting because I liked the time to think about writing a book.”
”I loved the shared reading with other children.”
”I have learned that it doesn’t matter about age, you can still be an author.”
Pupil feedback from Millfield School, Tamworth
