Oranges and Lemons

by Wendy Wallace

This warts-and-all look inside an inner city primary school is an intimate and charming account of how people at Edith Neville primary school approach issues that face urban schools everywhere. The author's insightful journalistic eye focuses on how individuals cope with government initiatives, the needs of the pupils and the community at large. Focusing on the progress of individual children, in some cases from the time they start nursery, this book illuminates contemporary urban school life and provides a human account of major and minor successes, and failures, over a twelve-month period in a passionate but complex educational community. The book highlights In the background the school's managers endeavour to meet targets and inspections, while containing teacher stress and retaining a vision of the broader purpose of education.

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 22, 2005

About the author

I grew up in Kent, in England, and later graduated in Media Studies from what was then Central London Polytechnic. I worked first as a photographer, then for many years as a feature writer, before turning to fiction.

I’ve written for the Times, the Times Educational Supplement, the Guardian, the Telegraph and many other magazines and newspapers.

My journalism, on Sudan and later on schools, led to my two non-fiction books - Daughter of Dust (Simon & Schuster 2009) and Oranges and Lemons (Routledge 2005). In 2001, I was Education Journalist of the Year.

I have now turned to writing fiction, which had always been my dream. The Painted Bridge, the story of a woman tricked into a Victorian asylum in the year 1859, is my first novel. I’m working on a second, titled Magic for the Living.

I’ve been greatly helped and encouraged in my writing by my family, my agent and my writing friends. My two grown up sons are sources of inspiration.

I have lived all my adult life in London. As well as enjoying company and solitude, reading and writing, I am an enthusiastic and sometimes year-round swimmer in the women’s pond on Hampstead Heath.

To receive updates on The Painted Bridge, as well as news about the book I'm writing now, you can 'like' my Facebook author page.

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