(Photograph) - Jemma Leech has won a trip to London as a finalist in The TES’s Write Away competition.
The eight-year-old from Penarth, south Wales, is severely disabled with cerebral palsy and cannot speak or walk. But she is studying A-level standard literature.
Jemma impressed the Write Away judges with an essay entitled Autobiography.
In it she writes: “Many people cannot imagine how there could be a brain in this body. They see a broken child like a broken toy. Few people suspect a city of people lives inside my fractured case with artists, musicians, politicians, teachers, priests and spacemen all vying for airtime on Jemma FM.”
Her teacher Melody Jones, language co-ordinator at Palmerston primary in Barry, said: “Jemma is the most gifted child I have ever taught.”
Jemma communicates by pointing to letters which are typed onto a computer.
Teacher magazine 8-11. Photograph by PAUL BOX
