East Ender Endorses Skills for Life
Bestselling author of My East End and Our Street Gilda O'Neill inspired and excited the audience at a conference in London with an honest account of her journey from educational disengagement in the East End of London in the 1950’s.
She told Maggie Semple OBE how after her self-confidence was crushed by teachers and careers advisers she left school early to help support her family. She later returned to education as a mature student and went on to take three university degrees. Since 1990 she has been writing full-time and has published seven novels and two non-fiction works as well as many short stories, articles and reviews.
Gilda was talking to Maggie at the annual NRDC/DIUS Skills for Life Conference and went on to emphasise that practitioners and policy makers need to always make an effort to listen to learners. She believes that everyone has a story to tell and deserves to be heard.
2008 has been designated the National Year of Reading. Gilda is an author of Quick Reads books (QR); fast-paced, bite-sized books by best-selling authors for adults who don’t have a reading habit.
Skills for Life is the national strategy for improving literacy and numeracy skills. The national conferences held in York, Birmingham and London. A key theme through the events was how stakeholders can work together to build on the significant accomplishments of the last few yeas and achieve the goals set out in the Leitch Review.
