Contributors

JENI SMITH: CHAIR

Jeni Smith has been writing with teachers for decades, even longer in schools. She believes that everyone is entitled to know and use writing in ways that are important to them; that writing is fundamental to the ways in which we think and grow, to our emotional, social and intellectual well-being. Jeni has taught children from nursery to A-Level and was a teacher educator at UEA.  Now, she is embedded in the life of a rural school where she continues to learn about how writing happens. Jeni runs three teachers’ writing groups in East Anglia and co-founded the NWP UK in 2009. She is joint chair of the NWP national committee.

 REBECCA GRIFFITHS

Rebecca is an Early Years specialist with more than ten years in education. She teaches in Norfolk within a large primary school and has worked closely with the Writing Teachers group at UEA since 2013. Her MA research focused on developing purposeful writing experiences with young children and explored the role of multimodal writing within the Early Years Foundation Stage. She is working towards a PhD proposal.

Sam Brackenbury: Secretary

Sam has taught throughout KS2 across two schools since completing his PGCE in 2014.  Currently, he is a teacher and Senior Leader in a two-form entry Primary in Norfolk, where he is responsible for a Year 3 class and English provision across the school.  Through attending Writing Teachers, Sam led his own in school writing clubs and developed an interest in how writerly conversations alongside high quality reading experiences contribute to the development of children as writers and as people. He believes in the transformative effect that teachers’ writing communities can have on developing a practitioner’s self-awareness and awakening the writers in their classroom.

Alison jermak: secretary

Alison Jermak has been teaching since 2007. She currently teaches secondary English at Park High School, Harrow. She joined an NWP group in 2014 and now leads her own in London. Alison likes to write short stories, life writing and poetry. She had a short story published by ‘Spread the Word’ in a ‘City of Stories’ anthology in 2018.

Theresa Gooda: WEBSITE EDITOR

Theresa Gooda has been a secondary English teacher for over twenty years in Sussex, London and Australia. She is a regional coordinator for NATE (National Association for Teachers of English), and South Downs group leader for the NWP. She is a current doctoral student investigating reading pedagogy at the University of Sussex, and part-time ghost-writer who is fascinated by the complexity and idiosyncratic nature of the writing process.

helen atkinson

Helen Atkinson has 15 years’ experience of working as a Secondary English teacher, a Lead Practitioner and an Assistant Principal in London and Kent. In 2009, she attended an early NWP workshop at a teaching conference – overcoming her guilt at not opting for something ‘more practical for the classroom’ instead. She considers it the best CPD she’s ever done and has been writing with the first NWP London group ever since. She currently teaches part-time whilst completing an MA in Creative Writing.

Emily Rowe: Co-chair

Emily has been a member of a Writing Teachers group since 2016. She is a KS2 primary school teacher in rural Suffolk and leads English across the school. She is passionate about children having the freedom to explore themselves as writers and empowering teachers to understand and teach writing through their own experiences of being part of a writing teachers group. In 2019 she completed her MA in educational practice and research, which focused on children’s writing.

MATTHEW LANE: SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Matthew Lane is a Primary teacher based in Norfolk where he has worked with KS2 since 2010. He has been involved with the UEA Writing Teachers group since 2013. Matthew is passionate about the role of self-expression and agency in writing and runs writing groups for children at his school. His research into writing and subject leadership have been published in HWRK and TES.

Stephen Jacklin: website MANAGER

Stephen Jacklin is a primary teacher in Norfolk. He has been teaching since 2011 and is head of Science at his school; he has been a member of the UEA’s Writing Teachers group for the same amount of time. Stephen is passionate about enhancing writing and vocabulary across the primary curriculum. He is researching ways in which to keep boys interested in writing as well as reading across Key Stage 2, in order to ‘narrow the gap’ with girls and to keep boys curious about English beyond Year 6 SATs.