On Thursday 20 January, pupils from The Prep and College were visited by Children’s Author, Tom Palmer.

Tom Palmer, is a children’s author of fifty four children’s books! This includes three Puffin Football series and the well known books, Arctic Star, After the War and Armistice Runner. 

Starting his day off at The Prep, Tom held fun, engaging and informative sessions with Middle and Upper School pupils. The pupils learned a huge amount about his wonderful storytelling through books such as ‘Arctic Star’ and ‘After the War’, teaching our children how historical events can inspire narrative fiction. Tom proved to be a very popular visitor to the Prep with many pupils eager to meet him and have their newly-acquired books signed. 

During this busy day, Tom also spoke with the Third Form about the many books he has written and about the importance of researching your subject thoroughly before you write. He spoke of how challenging and rewarding it is to learn and write about the people who fought or were affected by World Wars and that having an emotional connection running through your stories makes them stronger. He believes that you need to be respectful to those whose stories you are trying to share and that by learning about their lives you can do a much better job at writing their stories. The Third Form were excellent and highly engaged, asking lots of challenging questions! 

A huge thank you to Tom for coming to Cheltenham this week to chat with our pupils, they all thoroughly enjoyed the day and we look forward to welcoming him back in the future.