Crown Jewels Theft!

Today I was up at Kinsley Primary, a lovely school in Pontefract. I ran a whole day based on the idea that the Crown Jewels had been stolen and that my uncle, Inspector Morris, had phoned me up to see if I could get the children to help. And did they ever! The kids were brilliant. The Y1s made some great posters to stick up around school advertising the fact that the jewels had been stolen. Miss Ellis' Y1/2 class discovered jewels hidden around school, and, intriguingly, including a stash outside the headteacher's door. Y3 was probably the most exciting session, as we rang a local jeweller's and put him on speaker phone to tell us what had happened. He'd had a strange gentleman in that very morning trying to flog the Crown Jewels! Y4/5 wrote an impassioned plea from the Queen for the robber to return her jewels and Y5/6 wrote adiary extract as if they were the robber, imagining how he'd broken into the Tower of London to steal the jewels.

After showing their work at the end of the day, three Y5/6 children interviewed Mr Birdsall, the headteacher. A number of strange coincidences had led them to believe that HE might be the thief. And despite his repeated denials, the truth finally came out as his car had been spotted down by the Tower of London on the night in question.

The best reaction of the day was when one of the boys asked Mr Birdsall his shoe size. Y3 had previously found size 8 shoe prints outside the head's office. When Mr B said 'Size 8' there was an audible gasp from the audience. Brilliant!

I'm happy to report that the Queen has decided not to press charges, as long as Mr Birdsall returns the jewels.

It was such fun, made more so by Y5/6's Martha, who at lunch told me: "It's all fake. I'm going to blow this case apart." I'm not sure she did ever 'blow it apart', but I am sure that she had fun.