MEDIA & PRESS
THE STORY BEHIND THE ADVENTURES OF GABRIEL AND STORYQUEST
The Adventures of Gabriel began with one question, one child and one hour a week on a FaceTime call. In that hour, a mother and her son built a world called Coral Cove.
Kate Markland is available for press interviews, podcasts, panels and speaking engagements.
FEATURED IN
BBC NEWS
TEACH MAGAZINE
THE YORKSHIRE POST
TIMES RADIO
BBC RADIO GLOUCESTERSHIRE
THE TELEGRAPH & ARGUS
GLOUCESTERSHIRE LIVE
THE STORY SO FAR
It became three books and StoryQuest, an approach built on trusting children to tell their own stories.
StoryQuest has now reached 465 children in nine UK schools, and attracted attention from educators, journalists and organisations interested in children's voice, literacy and self-leadership.
Across StoryQuest delivery, all participating children engaged with the process and no behavioural incidents were recorded during the sessions.
The evaluation dataset includes children’s responses from schools across Bradford and Gloucestershire, UK.
STORYQUEST IN THE NEWS
BBC NEWS — JUNE 2025
Coverage of Kate and Gabriel’s storytelling journey and the StoryQuest work taking place in Bradford schools. Head of English Tom Hirst described the joy pupils found when they were given permission to enjoy their imaginations.
The article explores how child-led storytelling, oral authorship and partner scribing helped pupils move beyond the fear of the blank page.
Bradford children become authors for the city’s literature festival.
Cheltenham schoolboy’s story becomes a national model for helping children reconnect with writing.
Cheltenham schoolboy’s story becomes a national model for helping children reconnect with writing.
Kate contributed to an expert feature about helping children move from picture books to early chapter books with greater confidence.
FROM CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE TO PROFESSIONAL DISCUSSION
TEACH Magazine, Canada — September 2025
The Birth of StoryQuest: Storytelling Framework Reignites Writing Confidence in Students.
The Canadian Teacher Magazine - July 2025
The Science behind StoryQuest
Pakistan Education Review - December 2025
Oral Storytelling as a Bridge to Literacy: How One Boy's Stories Could Transform Pakistan's Literacy Crisis.
PhysioTimes India - November 2025
The Blank Page Breakthrough: How a Physiotherapist's Listening Skills Sparked a Literacy Revolution.
PhysioZine India - Febuary 2026
Kate Markland Front Cover Story and Biography
Journal of Novel Physiotherapy and Rehbilitation — 2024
From Adversity to Agency: Storytelling as a Tool for Building Children's Resilience.
Markland, K. (2024). Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 039–042. ISSN 2573-6264.
British Psychological Society Annual Conference — January 2025
Presentation: From Adversity to Agency: Storytelling as a Tool for Building Children's Resilience.
UK Parliament
Evidence submitted to the Committee on Institutional Transformation.
PUBLISHED QUOTES, READY TO USE
A mother and son’s storytelling ritual is helping to transform how children learn to write and express themselves through their own stories.
A powerful antidote to falling literacy rates among boys, post-pandemic oracy gaps, and the emotional weight many pupils silently carry.
The classroom buzzed with creativity, freedom, and a newfound realisation that, though small, their voices are mighty.
When children tell their stories in their own words, without restrictions, their creativity is free to flow.
We see this programme aligning beautifully with our wider literacy vision: fostering creativity, developing agency, and building lifelong readers and writers.
SHORT BIOS FOR EDITORIAL USE
50 words
Kate Markland is a keynote speaker, the founder of StoryQuest and co-author, with her son Gabriel, of The Adventures of Gabriel. A physiotherapist for 20 years, she shows audiences how trust is built: by imagining a world together and listening without correcting. Her keynote is Create the World You Want.
110 words
Kate Markland spent 20 years as a physiotherapist and built four award-winning clinics. There she learned that people begin to improve once someone hears their story without correcting it.
Later, she and her son Gabriel had one hour a week on a FaceTime call. They spent it building a world called Coral Cove. Kate asked one question, wrote down everything he said and corrected nothing. That world became The Adventures of Gabriel, now three books, and StoryQuest, a method since used by 465 children in nine UK primary schools.
Her keynote, Create the World You Want, shows audiences how building a world together builds trust, at eight or at eighty.
Interview Ideas
Build a world together, and trust follows. Why imagining something with another person builds trust faster than talking about trust.
One hour a week. How a weekly FaceTime call between a mother and her ten-year-old son became three books.
One question, nothing corrected. The four-step method anyone can use the same evening, with a child, a colleague or a parent.
Why enchantment matters. What happens to a conversation when it feels like play, and why adults need that as much as children do.
Fear does not respond to correction. What 20 years as a physiotherapist taught Kate about fear, and why people improve once their story has been heard.
The stories we inherit. How people live out the story others tell about them, at home and at work, and how to start telling their own.
Why children stop writing, and what brings them back. What happened when 465 children in nine UK schools were trusted to tell their own stories.
Seven changes children described. What the research found when 318 children were asked what it was like to be the author of their own story.
Trust at a distance. Building real connection when you only have a screen: remote teams, separated families, grandparents far away.
At eight or at eighty. Why the same method works in a classroom, a boardroom and a care home.
STORYQUEST
StoryQuest gives children the freedom to imagine, speak and be heard without being corrected, guided or rushed. It begins with a story. But what families create together is something much bigger: connection.
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