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Writing mentors wanted

‘Mentoring has been a really good experience for me. I learnt so much and the best parts were talking with the children, listening to the other mentors and workshop leaders, and learning from being in that situation every week.’

Nura, writing mentor

Register as a writing mentor today!

Help us unleash young imaginations.

We need volunteers for all our community writing labs and school programmes.

Workshops are typically two hours long with 30-minute briefing and debrief sessions before and after.

At our magical writing centre, we run programmes throughout the school year,  with after school clubs on Tuesday,  Wednesday,  Thursday, two on Saturdays and occasional special projects during school holidays.

In schools all over east London, our Writing Facilitators visit and run sessions across a term, or sometimes as one-off workshops. These can be during the school day or as an after school club.

Writing mentors

You can help young people explore writing and get excited about the stories they want to tell. Since 2010, our team of writing mentors have inspired and built the writing confidence of hundreds of children, nurturing their self expression and literacy skills.  

Volunteer sits with young writer and points to paper child writes in book. Book Bot in background

They have helped the children create their own country with laws, a secret service and a soft rock national anthem – produced an album sold on iTunes and Amazon – and written Monty Python inspired comedy sketches in partnership with BBC History.

You don’t need to be a writer or have worked with children before. We provide full training and all we ask for is oodles of enthusiasm for the task of supporting and encouraging our young writers. 

Volunteer writing mentor being pointed at by young writers as they play a game

‘Chief’ impersonators

Our popular Storymaking workshop simply would not work without the grumpy, bad-tempered ‘Chief’.

During our Storymaking workshops, students are invited to write fantastic stories, with the help of writing mentors, and to disprove the Chief’s assumption that children cannot write great stories.

Every once in a while, we ask writing mentors to play the role of the ‘Chief’ from the comfort of a private office, giving orders over the tannoy, demanding the next bestseller.

Publishers

Imagine the satisfaction of making a book called Green Wobbly Things Dancing.

Publishers transform children’s stories and illustrator’s drawings into brilliantly bound books during our weekly Storymaking workshops. This means all the children get to leave with their very own published manuscript.

You need to be a fast worker and well-organised with basic computer skills. This is an important job that involves printing and binding 30 books in a session. Often, Writing Mentors volunteer as Publishers too every few months.