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Helping young people believe in themselves through creative writing support and mentoring Gill Pawley – 07771 231563

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Say hallo!

Please contact us if you have any queries at all about Inkpots – we would really love to hear from you.

Also, we welcome your feedback – we really value hearing what people think about the workshops and how Inkpots is run. Without this, we could not function and all of the comments are valued and taken into account when planning is done.

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If, after looking at our site, you would like a chat, please get in touch

Gill Pawley

email inkling@inkpots.org
mobile 07771 231563
Telephone 01444 239548

quotes

I was always impressed by Gill’s passion for her business and the concept itself.

Ryan Matthews,
Affinity Sutton Housing Association

Inkpots is fun and educational.

Maia

Inkpots newsletters

We have two regular newsletters for our creative community.

Parents: http://eepurl.com/dtGZ65

Teachers: http://eepurl.com/dGFSDP

Thanks for signing up – and welcome to Inkpots!

InkpotsFollow

📚Helping young people believe in themselves through creative writing support and mentoring 📝workshops 🚀1:1 support. 💌gill@Inkpots.org

Avatar Inkpots @Inkpots1·

‘A great safe space to talk about all things creative.

Somewhere supportive to embrace all parts of ourselves.’

Inkpots as described by one of our members.

So proud.

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Avatar Inkpots @Inkpots1·

We're getting beyond excited for our masterclass with @vashti_hardy on 29 Oct at 10am. For 9 - 12 years olds. Fantasy map-making. Loads of fun. Come join us! More info: https://buff.ly/3DRRhHu or email gill@inkpots.org

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Avatar Honor Cargill-Martin @HonorCargillM·

So excited to be at the Book Nook this Saturday 🧙🏼‍♀️🧙🏼‍♀️🧙🏼‍♀️ https://twitter.com/booknookhove/status/1451126465416806405

The Book Nook@booknookhove

This Saturday (23rd) at 2pm we have the brilliant @HonorCargillM & @perditact joining us for a fantastic event to celebrate #TheDiaryofanAccidentalWitch! Perfect for fans of The Worst Witch, Witch Wars and Tom Gates... email us at events@booknookuk.com to book you place!

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Avatar Dan Worsley @dan__worsley·

It was my pleasure. Keep up the great work. You’re inspiring, supporting & nurturing the authors of the future 🤩✍️👏👍 https://twitter.com/inkpots1/status/1451213731736788994

Inkpots@Inkpots1

Thanks so much @dan__worsley for popping into our Inkpots this afternoon and sharing so many great writing tips and excellent book choices - perfect for the run up to Hallowe'en. Dan's enthusiasm and delight in writing is totally infectious!

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Avatar Dan Worsley @dan__worsley·

Finished the half term with a brilliant Zoom chat with the wonderful @Inkpots1 writers. Even set them a spooky writing challenge 👻 Great things going on within this group and I’m pretty sure I’ve just met some of the authors of the future 👍🤩✍️👏📚

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One of the things I enjoy most is connecting young

One of the things I enjoy most is connecting young people with new books - and getting their excited feedback.
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One of our members, Emily, has loved reading Diary of an Accidental Witch by @cargillwriters as her comments show.
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What’s even more exciting is that Emily will get to meet Perdita and Honor when they come to visit us.
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Thank you to Emily for reading and reviewing so quickly and to @cargillwriters for the inspiration.

It's always a pleasure to be sent some writing by

It's always a pleasure to be sent some writing by any of the young people who come to Inkpots - and that includes those who came to our after school clubs many years ago.⁠
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That's the case with Nico and it's a total delight to read their work and to find out how much solace they find in their writing.⁠
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Thanks so much for sharing @n_ghost123

There’s so much excitement building here over @v

There’s so much excitement building here over @vashtihardyauthor’s masterclass for us during October half term.
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This workshop is for young writers age 9 - 12 years and they don’t need to be already Inkpots members to attend. We love welcoming new people and are keeping the numbers for the workshop low so that everyone feels as comfortable as possible.
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Some more details:
🗺 Vashti will be running a fantasy map making session packed full of inspiration and ideas.
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🗺 Friday 29 October 2021 at 10am and delivered online via Zoom.
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🗺 The session will be an hour long and we will be encouraging participants to share their maps and stories with us so that we can give positive feedback to encourage further story developments.
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🗺 The workshop cost is £22.50 per child.
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Please DM for further details or if you’d like to know more about Inkpots.
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If you feel ready to book a place, the link is in our bio, or here it is to copy and paste: https://inkpots.org/vashti-hardy-masterclass/

On the grid today, we’re delighted to be sharing

On the grid today, we’re delighted to be sharing this photo of one of our members @lara_nunns.x taking part in Junior Musicality production with her drama group @aerieltheatrecompany
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Lara sang ‘So Big So Small’ from ‘Dear Evan Hansen’. She was singled out for particular praise by one reviewer.
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Lara is also a talented songwriter using her considerable creative skills to great effect, developing evocative and moving lyrics.
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📸@stephencandyphotography

Wishing you a happy weekend. Hope you have a chanc

Wishing you a happy weekend. Hope you have a chance to indulge in your favourite creative activities.
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On my list is painting the shed and a hop down to Brighton for some time by the sea.
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📸@gill_pawley

Poetry has provided a welcome relief during the pa

Poetry has provided a welcome relief during the past 18 months - both as a source of inspiration and comfort, and also as a form of self expression.
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Today, we’re delighted to be sharing ‘Worries’ by @ruby.jane.nunns

We’ve had a lot of new followers lately - thanks

We’ve had a lot of new followers lately - thanks so much for joining us here. Thanks also to those of you who have been following for a while too. You’re all really welcome.
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In this space among the squares we talk about books and authors we love, and new books we discover. We work closely with authors and artists as many visit our online groups and run masterclasses for us. So look out for some top writing tips too - and ideas to keep enthusiasm for writing going too.
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Increasingly, we share well-being tips and support. It continues to be a challenging time for young people and there are lots of anxieties swirling around. One of our core pillars of support is about safe creative space and we do everything we can to help nurture that.
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We firmly believe that creativity can support good mental health too. And over the next few months, there are plans to talk about activities which can nurture this.
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We also throw in a love of nature and colour, podcasts we like, accounts we’ve been inspired by - and cake. We do love cake at Inkpots 🧁

“Childhood is not, and should never be, a race.

“Childhood is not, and should never be, a race. It does not have to end at the same place for everyone. It is, and should always be, a journey that has many paths and endings, and many different measures of progress and success.” ⁠
Issy Butson⁠
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I listened to a new podcast last week by Issy @stark.raving.dad.⁠
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I loved this quote. It really struck a chord with me, having talked to so many young people who have struggled to deal with what felt like almost continual assessments last term. And have worked with some young people marked as ‘failures’. ⁠
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How wonderful it would be if our young people didn’t feel so constantly judged and were accepted as they are.⁠

Every season (or school term) I work with a small

Every season (or school term) I work with a small number of young people on a 1:1 basis. I always restrict the numbers to ensure that I’m able to give each student the very best support.
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As we’re in a new term, there are a few spots available to Christmas.
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It’s always important that the timing and regularity of such sessions are tailored to individuals so that we take into account school work, exam pressures and demands from other activities.
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If you’re at all interested, the first step is to book a free no obligation chat with me so that we can see if a 1:1 session would be a good fit.
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The link is in the bio - book in today and we can get things moving as soon as possible

This week is all about writing up some ideas which

This week is all about writing up some ideas which have been brewing for a while. (Apart that is from a chat with an OFSTED inspector I’ve just found out about 😬.)
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There have been so many changes again over the past few months that I want to reflect in Inkpots programmes. Sometimes, there are also feelings in the gut, intuitively knowing that different things are needed.
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I’ve had so many conversations with parents about the start to the school term for example; in lots of ways it’s felt very different to other years, but somehow young people are expected to be ‘back to normal’.
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So once the thinking and writing is done, I’ll be sharing with our young people - and then with everyone else once we’ve refined and amended.

We’re re-vamping our regular newsletter for pare

We’re re-vamping our regular newsletter for parents and other family members so if you’re not already subscribed, now is a great time!
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We promise not to clutter your in-box but will be sharing creative resources, helping develop young people’s confidence and build up our lovely community.
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The link to sign up is in our bio or you can copy and paste this one too: http://eepurl.com/dtGZ65

Tuesdays are when our group for secondary age stud

Tuesdays are when our group for secondary age students meets (always a good day).
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Our Year 11s have been working in their personal statements in preparation for going to college or into work next year.
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We talked about the things which could be included and worked on an exercise to gather information on achievements all in one place - say on their phones or a Google doc.
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Considering we’ve been through a pandemic, their achievements are remarkable and include activities with Scouts, Duke of Edinburgh Award, football, playing in orchestras and involvement in theatre groups.
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Keeping a regular note of achievements helps to remind us of how well we can do - especially when the negative bias in our brains just likes to bring up the things that go wrong!

At the start of the summer, I made a promise to my

At the start of the summer, I made a promise to myself to post much more regularly on the grid here. Over the past year, it’s all been rather haphazard (pandemic maybe?). But our lovely intern @summer_raselma did a wonderful job in freshening up the posts during her time with us, so I wanted to continue her fine work.
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But I got to yesterday morning and the scheduled post felt totally wrong.
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It was to do with September having that lovely ‘back to school’ energy and how we can embrace that feeling.
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But the truth is that this year things feel very different here.
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There isn’t the usual feeling and I can’t quite put my finger on it but I get a sense from the young people I work with of holding back and feeling quite tentative about the coming months. Anxiety is high and worries to the fore.
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So I ditched the post. And spent some time thinking more about how we could support our young people in the (yet another) new phase for them.
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Lots of people talk about things returning to normal. Yet they’re not. Things are different and it’s important to acknowledge that and change things up so that the support offered here is what’s needed by our young people.
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Back to the schedule tomorrow!

I love early Autumn with the misty mornings, abund

I love early Autumn with the misty mornings, abundant hedgerows and permission to dig out big comfy jumpers.
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It’s also a good season for writers as the days start to shorten. This half term with our online groups we’re creating storyboards with an Autumn theme- gorgeous images, ideas and inspirations.

One of the absolute joys at Inkpots is sharing boo

One of the absolute joys at Inkpots is sharing books with young people. We have three pillars of support - one of which is to encourage reading as widely as possible. And not just story books - poetry, picture books, comics, graphic novels, non-fiction, blogs and so on.
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Then what is totally brilliant is when young people recommend books they have read and rave about. That’s what happened a few weeks ago when Rebecca recommended Poet X by @acevedowrites
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All the good feels when this happens!

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