Wednesday March 12th 2025

Dear Diary,

I encountered snow when I left the house for today’s visit to Eastcombe Primary School. It wasn’t pink (like it is in WARNING: Magic Can Be Dangerous!), but it was still a surprise, nonetheless! With 48 children all in one classroom for my assembly, I soon thawed out, though. And we all had a good giggle when one of the pupils confessed she’d use magic to turn her bother into a spider and flush him down the toilet. (Fortunately, her brother – who was in the audience – was a good sport!!!). With a small class of just six Reception pupils for my first workshop, we got through 4 activities in no time! It was certificates all round, as each of them put so much effort into their drawing, colouring, and sentence tracing. I was secretly thrilled they wanted me to stay with their class all day and spend break and lunchtime with them, too! But by then, it was time to move on to my workshop for Years 1 & 2. Again, it was a small class (11 pupils), but they were also hard workers. In smaller schools, it’s always a treat getting to spend more one-on-one time with each individual child and seeing their work progress throughout the session. One piece I especially loved was Reuben’s story about an adorable monster:

Once upon a time, there was a monster called Enid. He was so very fierce and he is cute and he eats children for breakfast. He is bigger than a whale. One day, Enid found 5 children (as usual). He crept downstairs and saw his very new pet snake. The snake was called Barry…

Reuben wrote pages and pages more in the hour I was in his class. And how is his writing so neat? He’s only in Year 1!!! Arthur’s story about a crazy old lady who has hated children ever since they changed her hair colour and decides to play a trick on them was great, too! After lunch, I continued with a session for Years 3 & 4. I couldn’t believe how quickly the pupils in this class filled their sheets, moved onto the back of them, then requested extra paper. And there were some super stories. My favourite has to be Sierra’s, about a pupil called Emma who discovered her headteacher was actually an alien! The book cover she designed for her story was brilliant, too. Lastly, came a workshop for Years 5 and 6… who adopted me as their pookie when they arrived in from the snow first thing this morning. (I had no idea what a pookie was at the time, and had to ask for an explanation – it means friend apparently. Well, either that, or the cheeky monkeys were winding me up! Lol. But this was a great bunch, so I think I can trust them!) There were so many standout stories and poems in this group that we quickly depleted my stash of certificates. But of all the work produced, I thought Will’s poem about a vegan vampire was extremely clever:

I’m a vegan vampire,
With my vegan burger attire,
I like the environment and animals too,
I replace “moo” with tofu.

I used to suck blood till my victims turned grey,
But really, at the end of the day,
It’s not good to kill people, they have lives!
Families, siblings, husbands, and wives…

I also loved Holly’s and Ellie’s stories about children who had a pet dinosaurs. Two very different takes on the same theme, with Ellie’s story having Jimmy’s mum come out with the classic ‘Jimmy, I hate to break it to you, but that’s a rock!’ when Jimmy thinks he’s found a dinosaur egg. And Holly’s character, Theo, having a very vivid imagination, leading him to believe that one of the presents he opens on his third birthday contains a real dinosaur! I could ramble on and on about today’s wonderful visit, but it’s time to get packed and ready to head off to another school tomorrow. I had such a fantastic time at Eastcombe Primary, and it was another day that I’ll never forget!!!