Teacher quits job to launch pioneering creative class

A writer has quit her job as a teacher to launch a pioneering new class for young people with special educational needs.
Kate Wilson worked as a teacher before launching her new writing class. Picture: Liz PearceKate Wilson worked as a teacher before launching her new writing class. Picture: Liz Pearce
Kate Wilson worked as a teacher before launching her new writing class. Picture: Liz Pearce

Kate Wilson wants to prove that anyone can enjoy creative writing with the right help, so is setting writing workshops, beginning this August.

Kate, who lives in Brighton Road in Worthing, said: “I am really passionate about creating work opportunities for disadvantaged young people.”

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After working at Oak Grove College for five years, 39-year-old Kate decided she wanted to follow her passions: writing and helping young people with special educational needs.

She said it is an ‘idea that has been brewing for years’.

She said: “Some of those kids have brilliant ideas.

“What might have stopped them previously was fear of failure.

“It’s about helping them to put their words on a page, teaching them that they can do it.”

Kate said some of her students may never have picked up a pen for creative writing, but she will be there to help channel their ideas onto the page, acting as a sort of ‘ghost writer’.

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A few test sessions have been very positive, according to Kate, and she is excited to expand the project.

She added: “You do not always know what is going to happen at the end of the session.

“It’s really organic, you just follow them around with a pen and see what they can come up with.”

Held at the Heene Community Centre between August 21 and 23, the workshops cost £38 for one day or £100 for all three days.

However, admission is free for Herald and Gazette readers.

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Kate hopes the workshops will help students develop marketable skills, and will perhaps seek to bring together some of the students’ work for sale to the public, for instance in a poetry anthology.

“It is about showing them that even the smallest idea can be used for something.”

“Every one of them will have a passion for something.

“Everyone, with our help, will have the ability to get that out into the real world.”

Places are open to young people between 16 and 21 years of age with mild to moderate reading and writing difficulties.

For details contact Kate by email at [email protected] or visit www.invisibleinkbooks.co.uk.

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