England's leading creative writing charity for young people

‘I am so grateful to have had this experience’

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Michelle Burke is a First Story Lead Teacher at Haringey Learning Partnership: Commerce House, an alternative provision school and service in Wood Green, London offering specialised teaching and support to students with complex needs. In 2021, six students worked with First Story Writer-in-Residence, Ashley Hickson-Lovence to complete the Young Writers Programme over sixteen sessions. The results, as Michelle describes, were life-changing both for the students, and for her practice as a teacher.

Participating in the First Story programme provided me with a deeper understanding of my students as individuals, their lives outside of school and some of their innermost thoughts. It also enabled me to experience my student’s creativity in a completely different way; I was privileged to bear witness to their personal growth as well as their growth as writers.

The First Story programme has sparked an interest for me to develop my practice further to use writing as a therapeutic tool. I am so grateful to have had this experience (. . .) it has been transformative on all levels.

The starting point was a class of students with great imagination who could give an oral account of a story, but putting the same energy to put pen to paper was much more of a challenge. Working with First Story Writer-in-Residence, Ashley Hickson-Lovence gave me insight into how I could tap into my student’s creativity and get them to write without it being an ordeal. With their resistance rooted in a lack of confidence and a fear of failure, I observed at how skillfully Ashley was able to engage the students in a writing process that encouraged them to experiment with language and different writing styles, a process that allowed their voice to be heard on their terms, without restriction. It was freedom. A chance to understand and connect to a part of themselves that usually wouldn’t be permitted in the classroom, a part of themselves that is nudged out of the way and silenced because as a student who has been excluded from mainstream education, experience tells you that your voice and what you have to say doesn’t matter.

My approach to teaching creative writing has changed, I am less traditional in allowing myself and the students the freedom to experiment, exploring a range of writers and different forms of writing, immersing ourselves in different world.

Teaching in an Alternative Provision, I witnessed first-hand the powerful process that took place over the sixteen weeks; it captivated the hardest to reach students, the ones that would refuse to write a sentence, the ones who proclaimed they ‘hated English’, the ones who existed on the periphery of the class. These very students filled their writing journals, bravely showcasing their vulnerability and showed up weekly even in the midst of a pandemic to write. They found their voice and the confidence to share the work they created; pride growing week to week, noticeable in the steadiness and projection of their voice and the gradual straightening of their posture. 

I noted Ashley’s introduction to sessions and the different activities he used to capture the attention of the class and I experimented with some of the same activities with my other classes, keen to give them a taste of the First Story experience.

My approach to teaching creative writing has changed, I am less traditional in allowing myself and the students the freedom to experiment, exploring a range of writers and different forms of writing, immersing ourselves in different worlds. I noted Ashley’s introduction to sessions and the different activities he used to capture the attention of the class and I experimented with some of the same activities with my other classes, keen to give them a taste of the First Story experience. It’s also sparked an interest for me to develop my practice further to use writing as a therapeutic tool.

The First Story programme has been transformative on all levels. I am so grateful to have had this experience, and even more so that my students were able to experience working with Ashley and having their work published. The impact on their sense of self is life-changing. First Story is life-changing.

Click here to read about Baran, one of six students to complete the First Story Young Writers Programme at Commerce House: Haringey Learning Partnership.