Mr Trevor Gray

During a career in primary education, I worked in a number of roles from teacher to headteacher and education officer across a range of Scottish local authorities. Developing learning and teaching approaches which promoted increased opportunities for independent and extended writing and the teaching of skills through these pieces was always important to me. As part of this approach, I also had the privilege of using published authors as strong models to support learners’ own writing. Within the learning area I felt it was important to provide access to a range of genre which learners could access at a time of their choosing. We must remember that as adults, sometimes we are in the mood and become lost within a text, sometimes not!

Having a little more free time once this career was over, I felt it was time to start writing myself and “The Dinosaur in my Washing Machine” was actually based on a true story! I had been on a residential trip with my class and one of the pupils asked me to look after a toy, plastic dinosaur. I put this in my pocket and forgot all about it. Once home and laundry started, I became aware of a tapping on the window of the washing machine. There was the dinosaur . . . and the rest is history!