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

Why Children's Stories Should Be Written by Children

Why Children's Stories Should Be Written by Childrenby: Kate

Almost every book a child reads was written by an adult. What is lost when a child never sees themselves as the author.

children as authorschildren's storiesauthenticityvoicepeer storytellingStoryQuest methodology
Why Children's Stories Should Be Written by Children

The Child's Lens Changes Everything

The Child's Lens Changes Everythingby: Kate

Adults who write for children remember. Children who write their own stories know. The difference is everything.

child's perspectivelensstorytellingauthenticitychildren as authorsStoryQuest methodology
The Child's Lens Changes Everything

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

The Book That Made It Onto Times Radio at Cheltenham Literature Festival

The Book That Made It Onto Times Radio at Cheltenham Literature Festivalby: Kate

How a book written on FaceTime during a court-ordered separation made it onto Times Radio at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Kate MarklandStoryQuestchildren's self-leadershiptherapeutic storytellingchildren's storytelling methodologyreluctant writersboys literacychildren's confidenceoracyself-leadership for childrenchildren's voicepeer to peer storytellingThe Adventures of GabrielUK family courts institutional failurechildren's care homesprotective mothersconstraint to creationclinical listeningBritish Psychological Society childrenchildren as authors
The Book That Made It Onto Times Radio at Cheltenham Literature Festival

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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