Kate's Blog

These are the things I know about imagination, trust, and the worlds people build when you stop correcting them, at eight or at eighty.

Thoughts and Evidence

When the Classroom Becomes a Stage for Adult Anxieties

When the Classroom Becomes a Stage for Adult Anxietiesby: Kate

Children arrive at school with stories about who they want to become. The question is whether the classroom makes space for those stories or replaces them with ours.

classroomadult anxietieschildren's aspirationsstoriesschool environmentStoryQuest
When the Classroom Becomes a Stage for Adult Anxieties

School Has Become a Transaction

School Has Become a Transactionby: Kate

A school that closes its gates to families has decided it already knows the full story. The evidence on parental engagement and educational outcomes.

school transactionparental engagementfamilieschildren's outcomesaccountabilityStoryQuest
School Has Become a Transaction

When Teachers Serve Ofsted Instead of Children

When Teachers Serve Ofsted Instead of Childrenby: Kate

You became a teacher to inspire children. You are spending your evenings jumping through Ofsted's hoops. What the system is doing to the professionals it needs most.

Ofstedteacher wellbeingchildren's educationsystem pressureschool accountabilityteachers
When Teachers Serve Ofsted Instead of Children

What Happened When Year 5 Became Authors for a Day at Beckfoot Allerton Primary

What Happened When Year 5 Became Authors for a Day at Beckfoot Allerton Primaryby: Kate

Year 5 children at Beckfoot Allerton Primary Bradford become authors for a day. What they produced and what they said about it.

Bradford schoolsStoryQuestchildren as authors100% engagementBeckfoot Allerton Primaryreluctant writers
What Happened When Year 5 Became Authors for a Day at Beckfoot Allerton Primary

BOOK KATE TO SPEAK

Build a world together, and trust follows.

Your people are being asked to trust each other across distance, across generations and through constant change. Most have never been shown how.

Kate Markland has. For a time she had one hour a week with her son Gabriel, on a FaceTime call. They spent it building a world. She asked one question, wrote down everything he said and corrected nothing. That world became three books and a method tested in nine UK schools.

In her keynote, Create the World You Want, Kate shows your audience how trust is really built, and gives them a method they can use the same evening.

For leadership, education and family audiences.

Even the kids who don’t like writing didn’t want to leave.
Tom Hirst Head of English, Dixons Manningham Primary
Even the kids who don’t like writing didn’t want to leave.
Tom Hirst Head of English, Dixons Manningham Primary

STORYQUEST

StoryQuest gives children the freedom to imagine, speak and be heard without being corrected, guided or rushed. It begins with a story. But what families create together is something much bigger: connection.

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