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What’s the best thing about being Children’s Laureate?

It’s an opportunity to do things you believe are important, that otherwise you might not have a chance to do. I’ve always felt that playlets – little sketches with six or so characters – are a good way of helping children learn to read or improve their reading. I mentioned this in my Laureate’s speech and I’ve now got a series of 36 short plays about to be published by Pearson.

I’ve also just created a website called PictureBookPlays (www.picturebookplays.co.uk), where I’m drawing together ideas and expertise on dramatising stories. I’m dying for teachers to log on and pool their experiences. 

You’ve visited countless schools over the years. What, from an author’s point of view, makes a good school visit?

Firstly, the school must really want the author’s visit. I also think the school should pay for it. For lots of authors, that’s how they earn their money, not from royalties. 

It’s important to read the writer’s books beforehand, especially with a novelist. I love it when the teacher and children prepare something, perhaps a little five-minute performance. And plan some follow-up work as well. 

You really want the teacher’s full attention and not just the children’s. There’s nothing worse than when a teacher thinks ‘phew, I can hand them over to this author’ and then sits at the back chatting or marking books or stapling. It’s so distracting, as well as being disrespectful and not setting a good example for the children.

Do you have a message of support for the NUT’s Reading for Pleasure campaign? And can you offer any ideas for bringing reading for pleasure into the classroom?

I’m definitely pro reading for pleasure. I’m with you all the way!

I think reading aloud to the class, even if just for a few minutes each day, is a brilliant way of inspiring children to love books. It happens a lot with younger classes, but I think it should continue right through primary school.

Children love sharing their own stories and favourite books with one another. If your school doesn’t have a library create one, with second-hand books if necessary and pupils as librarians. Have sessions where the children tell one another about the books they’ve been reading and stories they like. Get authors in as well. 

And acting out stories of course – maybe going to picturebookplays.co.uk!

If you had a week as Education Secretary, what would you change?

How has it come to be that someone who’s never been a teacher or worked in education can become Secretary of State for Education and, just because of their own personal experience or whim, they’re allowed to change everything? 

I think it would be better if education policy-making was taken out of the Government’s hands and put into the hands of a politically independent body of people who are actually teachers or have worked in education. The Government, aside from setting the education budget, would have to abide by what these experts said. 

So if I was Education Secretary first I’d give a big box of chocolates to every teacher then I’d do myself out of a job. I’d create this body and demote myself, leaving policy-making to people who actually know what they’re talking about.