Poetry Day at Ecclesall

What a GREAT day I've had at Ecclesall Junior school in Sheffield. Rarely have I been made to feel quite so welcome. Everyone was so kind - I even had cups of coffee brought to me as I worked!

And the children were amazing. The Year group poems at the beginning of the day that were showcased to me were outstanding. I loved the song / poem that the Y5 children did about Lowry (very moving, I found). The Y6 poem inspired after their visit to the World War Battlefields in France was stunning (not to mention the trumpet solo - or was it trombone? I always get them mixed up!). I'm still wondering what I'd do if I had Year 4s magic key, but my favourite had to be Y3s pet poem with the stick insect called (stickers?) who lived in some... Brilliant!

After I'd heard them I wondered how on earth I'd follow suit, but I did not need to have worried. As always, it's the children that come up with the really good stuff. I just have to give them some ideas, get them inspired, and then let them go. And go they did! They worked incredibly hard, and seemed to really enjoy the competition at the end of the day. Sammy, the winner from 5 C, was out of this world. But the other poets who made the final were excellent too. Highlights for me included ...

'My love for you is as perfect as teachers shutting up!' (A love poem written to football, I think it was!)

'It's...
It's...
It's...

Fallen out of my ears.' A reference to what happened to one young poet's idea for a brilliant sport poem when he 'forgot' to write the idea down.

Thanks to everyone at the Junior School. I truly truly had a fab time. Oh, and thanks to the poets who kept presenting me with poems that they'd written throughout the day. I was really touched to be given them.

Good school, good fun, goodnight!

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.

Teddy Bear's Picnic

Today I spent lunchtime at a Teddy Bear's Picnic, in a woodland near Castleford. The weather was (at times) pretty rubbish, and by 1110, ten minutes after the official start time, there were...wait for it...a grand total of TWO children. However, more and more came to investigate what was going on, and by the time storytime arrived, there were a good number of children of various ages. However, gathering them all together to stay still in one place looked as if it was going to be a challenge. Until nature intervened with a downpour. Everyone rushed to the gazebo, and with some quick thinking we managed to wrap a tarpaulin around the sides. The effect, therefore, was to get all the kids in one, small space, turn everyone's faces blue (the tarp was blue), and have a ready made story area.

And the kids really liked the stories. I was really chuffed with some of the older, 'I'm too cool for this' type kids, who in the end went away with their 'gift' of a teddy bear, proudly clutching it whilst also still trying to look cool. Their love of my stories felt great. One of the most 'cool' dudes piped up suddenly and said 'he' been to my school. He tells mint stories.' And that just made me want to tell him another 'mint' story. Which I did. Masha and the Bear, in fact. A brilliant, Russian based, teddy bear story, with a bear that isn't very teddy like. The children joined in with gusto and we had a brill time.

Once again, I realised how even older children still have a love and a longing inside for stories. Pure and simple, no props, no devices, just stories. And what a privilege to be the one who can give them to these kids. I am LOVING storytelling just now. LOVING it!

Boggarts in the Park; Skeleton ninjas in the cemetery

Day two of my three day visit to the Portecroft family of schools in Sheffield. This morning saw me and 30+ key stage 1 children writing a brand new Boggy Boggart the Bad story. Kids, you were GREAT! Some of the description of the despicable Boggart was fantastic. My particular favourite was Boggy's mouldy cheese bogey's that stuck to his nose. And I loved the idea of a river, leaf and starlight fairies, whose jobs it was to look after the river water, clean the trees' leaves, and make the stars twinkle. Good to see Boggy getting a taste of his own medicine too - he ended up in Fairy Jail in one story!

And this afternoon saw me taking my first trip to the cemetery on Stalker Lee Road (great name for a road bordering a cemetery). It was MASSIVE, as were the tombstones. Sergeant James Grim woul dhave had field day. Thanks to the Portercroft Year 5s who kept us oldies amused with tales of Ninja Skeletons (one with Iron bars in his bones - he was called Rod! and a chicken ninja Skeleton who clucked as he fought! - thanks Callum) until the other school arrived. The poems were superb. My favourite lines had to be...

It was so quiet in the cemetery I could hear...

The trees whispering the secrets of the deceased
Maggots munching the skin of the skeletons
Cells dividing
Shadows creeping behind you

I was so so impressed by everyone's effort and skill in writing these poems. And, as we got rained on from a dizzy height, it was good to head back to school to write up the finished articles. Although please don't show the young ones the final versions - some of the pictures that the kids found are more than a little scary!

Conrad's Magical, Literacy Whistle Stop tour

Yesterday, I saw...wait for it...1700 DIFFERENT pupils, in eight different assemblies, across 6 different sites, in ONE DAY! 1700! That's a ridiculously large number of pupils. And it was fun, exhausting, crazy, wonderful, exhilarating, 'getting there on time...mostly', brilliant and fantastic. It's all been part of the 'let's write together' project organised between Hunters Bar Junior and Infants, Ecclesall Infants and Juniors, Portecroft Primary and Greystones Primary. Thanks to all the children who made me feel so welcome, and thanks especially to Dylan and Maisy - Dylan for giving me the idea of giving Sergeant James Grim the key to the cemetery gates and Maisy for giving me the idea of writing a poem about making fake sick to get the day off school.

Gifted and Talented Youngsters

I've had such a brilliant time with the Gifted and Talented children from Martin Frobisher, Lee Brigg, Normanton Newlands and Normanton Common schools. In two sessions of two hours they have all produced an entire story each - beginning, middle and end with awesome description and plot. I've really been blown away by how well they worked and how much of the time they managed to spend physically writing. Marshall and Pippa, two of the Year 1 children, were brilliant. Lucy's writing was magnificent, but so too were all the others. And some of the other boys really got into it - Toby had some BRILLIANT ideas and read his story well. I'm looking forward to working with the Key Stage 2 children on Thursday, but they've got some work to do to live up to the standard set by the youngsters. Well done everyone!

New Poetry

I've been given a few poems over the last couple of weeks, so have decided to share them here. Well done to all you budding poets!

POETRY IS WOW!

Poetry is wow
Poetry is cool
Poetry is great
Poetry can be wrote at school.

Poetry is Amazing
Poetry is Ace
Poetry is the Best
Poetry can sometimes be a craze

I like poetry
So should you
Nobody hates poetry
Really who?

By Lauren at St Peter's