The Year 3s from Badger Class at Salway Ash Primary let their imaginations run riot this week as they wrote a brand new story featuring Junior, an eagle-winged onion in his battle against the Evil Pizza. Along the way, Junior is helped or hindered by a cast of weird and wonderful characters; Aberdeen Angus, Chunky Monkey and the Disco Cows all featuring in this tale of derring do and pepperoni peril.

Ash Class from Mountjoy School in Beaminster took over the reins of Bridport Museum this morning for a personally curated exhibition. The group has worked very hard over the last month handpicking pieces from the museum or its archive that they wanted to champion. These were items that spoke to them, or that resonated in some way with the student. They then wrote new signs to go up next to those pieces, to explain what the artefact was and why they had selected it. They told us what the piece meant to them, or how they felt it should be seen by others.

We had a brilliant morning working at Mountjoy School on a character creation workshop this week. Working with Hazel class was a real privilege and the character they came up with was absolutely extraordinary. Having a criminally inclined milkshake salesman called Cow Toyahming, facing off against their nemesis Detective Dave was completely hilarious.

Would you believe it? Someone’s only gone and left all their stuff lying around the Bank! We were interrupted while working with a brilliant bunch of Year Threes at Radipole Primary School this week. The Bank Manager had found various items littering his office, chucked around the canteen and even strewn around the vaults themselves! Fortunately, we were able to brighten his mood by working with the classes 3B and 3H to discover just who this forgetful  character was.

Over the past six weeks, we’ve had a great time running a series of podcasting workshops with a brilliant group of Year 9 and 10 students from Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester. Their energy, thoughtfulness, and willingness to dive into new creative territory made the project something truly special.

We were back on the campaign trail again this week - this time in Radipole Primary School in Weymouth, working with an absurdly talented group of Year 4 pupils. There was a power vacuum in the forest - the king was missing, and it was up to us to elect a new leader.

Uh-oh! The King of the jungle has gone missing! Luckily a highly persuasive group of students from Mountjoy School in Beaminster were on hand to help us elect a new leader to unite the jungle community.

This week, the Bridport Arts Centre became a hive of imagination as we got to work with a very talented bunch of young people, running a story-making workshop as part of Laura Eldret’s From and To installation . The exhibition space, which was already alive with Eldret’s themes of exchange, community, and shared experience, proved to be the perfect setting for a session dedicated to creativity and collective storytelling.

BANKFEST returned for its second triumphant year last month. Over three high-energy days, Dorset’s young people met older people (mostly) who make a living with their words: comedy writers, novelists, journalists, game writers, poets, lyricists and so many  more

Codfather & Co, a small British Fish & Chip shop which opened in the 1950s has, through luck, hard graft and shady underworld connections, grown from its humble origins to become a diverse multinational conglomerate with its fins in many pies. It's basically the Amazon of chippies.

This surreal Podcast written and created entirely by our after school podcast club, mixes surreal sketches, weird fiction and 'out-of-this-world-building,' with magazine style articles and heated debates.

Bank staff had a fantastic few days in Sweden last week, attending a conference with some of our sister organisations from around the world. Hosted by the amazing Berättarministeriet , Stockholm, the three day conference brought together a variety of children’s writing charities from three continents to swap ideas, discuss challenges and share inspirational projects.

We were back in Loders Primary School this week to present the children with their copies of the latest in our whole-school poetry anthology series: ‘Environment’.

As our official launch for the book, we brought a brief halt to the school day in order to celebrate their achievement in becoming published poets.

We were back in Shute Primary School this Tuesday, helping the students bring their silliest ideas into reality in our character creation workshop.

Yet again, the Manager rang up to complain that he'd discovered more misplaced items in our vault. We were unsure about who could have left these mystery pieces, so who better to turn to than the brilliant minds of the Year 3s and 4s of Shute Primary School.

For several weeks now, a group of students at Wadham School have been writing original short stories, each one founded on the central theme that all may not be as it seems…  As these stories are speedily approaching completion, it has been helpful for the authors to receive feedback on what they have written so far. So, this Thursday, we invited a panel of Year 5s and 6s from Ashlands Primary School to listen and respond to their work.

We’ve all been there - you stick your arm into the vending machine, hoping to reach your favourite chocolate bar when…whoops! All of a sudden you’re stuck in the machine itself with no way to get out. Classic! So, what do you do? Well, call the pupils from Shute Primary School, that’s what you do.

Who doesn’t love a card game. Simple, fun, portable and they never need charging!

We have had a brilliant time over the last few weeks at Salway Ash Primary, working with the whole school on creating a school specific card game. Working from Reception right through to Year 6, we asked the pupils to write short memories of their time at the school that related to the school’s Visions and Values.

Travelling the world was never this exciting ! This Thursday saw the culmination of our exciting travel writing project at Salway Ash Primary.

Working over five weeks with a fantastic group of Year 5s , we wrote travelogues that spanned the globe, and even took us to a few fantasy kingdoms as well! We used memories of our own journeys, drama, immersive multi-media and even VR to trot our way around the globe and document our travels.

Last Wednesday, we were lucky enough to return to the Prince of Wales School in Dorchester, working with a very talented bunch of Year 3s on some persuasive speechwriting. We arrived to the terrible news that the Lion, King of the Beasts, had gone missing!

Our new after school podcasting club is now up and running. It takes place on Mondays from 4:30pm to 6pm in Bridport, and is for 9-14 year olds who feel they have something to say! You can sign up here and we are looking forward to meeting you.

Today we ran our very first CPD training session with the amazing teachers at Radipole Primary School. To celebrate we made a little film of the session which you can watch here.

This month’s featured volunteer is mediator, writer and Vault stalwart, Annie Franklin.

So how did you come to be a volunteer at The Bank?

I moved to Eype from Gloucestershire in the summer of 2023, attracted by Bridport’s creative and literary vibe. There was a poster in the Tourist Information Centre that caught my eye; I was intrigued by the name “The Bank of Dreams and Nightmares” and pulled up the website.

Friday saw the culmination of our Science Fictions project, as a group of students from Wadham school presented their science demos to Year 6 pupils from Hazelbury Plucknett School. The presentations included a reading of their story, a demo of their principal and a Q&A session, which the audience really engaged with. The students have all worked so hard on their stories and their demonstrations, that it was brilliant to see their efforts paying off in such a successful session.

On Thursday, we visited Salway Ash Primary School to work on running some political campaigns with the Year 4s. What began as a simple workshop on persuasive language quickly spiralled into a full-blown animal election campaign.

We were delighted to be back in Mountjoy School again last week! The amazing writers from Ash Class were busy writing their own personal statements as they prepare to move on to schools, colleges and even work placements.

Last Friday saw us heading back to Salway Ash to work with their Year 3 class on a story making project that nobody saw coming! The imaginations of these young authors were really working overtime, and the group came together to craft a beautiful story about a young cat cow named Derek who follows in the footsteps of its parents in an attempt to find a friend. Along the way he encounters dragons, dank caves, shiny mansions and even giant, monster spiders!

We are very excited to announce the launch of our latest story anthology. Written entirely by the talented Year 6 pupils from Salway Ash, Superior Gods is a collection of short stories investigating the world of escape. Each of these perfectly crafted nuggets of speculative fiction has, at its heart, the idea of an ‘escape’. Whether this is a character battling to return home, a literal freeing from slavery, or a psychological breaking free from the norm, each of these tales is bound up with the idea of freedom.

We had a brilliant morning working with a multi-talented, mixed age-group class from Musbury Primary School in Devon. The tale of Alan the Alien and his attempt to save his best friend, Gary, from the evil machinations of Dave the Tadpole, is an absolute classic!

We were at Loders Primary School all this week, working with the whole school to write some fantastic poetry about the environment.

What makes home, Home? What’s the very best thing about where you live? Is it a destination, a comfy familiarity, or is it the vibe, the community, the people? We have been asking the amazing pupils from Radipole Primary School to consider and respond to this question through poetry, as part of their school focus: “Love Where You Live”.